Tag Archives: ramblings

Friday Afternoon Ramblings

March 29, 2013 D.A. Adams 4 Comments

I know I’ll catch a lot of grief for this post, but here’s one potential solution to virtually all of our political divisiveness. Let’s turn the decision making on most, if not all, of these issues back to the states. If each state has the opportunity to decide for itself, based on the will of the majority, how to settle these issues, then we can find out in real-time and through real experimentation which paths work best. Through the free market, the states that enact the laws which best serve the will of the people will thrive, and the others will struggle. If people don’t agree with the path of their state, they have the freedom to move to one that best suits their world view.

For example, if New York wants tougher gun control laws, let them pass those statutes. If Texas wants every single citizen armed, so be it. Within a few years, we’ll know which one works best. Crime in each state will reflect the wisdom of their laws. If gun control advocates are correct, New York will become a safer place, while Texas will resemble a Mad Max movie. If gun rights advocates are correct, Texas will in fact have less gun violence. Either way, we’ll know definitively.

If the citizens of Tennessee oppose gay marriage but the people of Massachusetts want it, then each state, by the majority of its citizens, can make that choice. Homosexual couples have the freedom and the right to leave Tennessee for a state that accepts their lifestyle. Likewise, people who oppose homosexuality for religious reasons can move to states that support their religious doctrines. Sure, people in Massachusetts may view people in Tennessee as backwards barbarians, and people in Tennessee may view Massachusetts as a godless land of heathens, but that wouldn’t be much different from how each views the other already. The difference is that citizens of neither state will feel as if the other is imposing its will on them.

If Kansas and Arkansas want to ban the teaching of science and evolution from their schools, let them. Let’s see how long their economies can survive without scientific thought. We will learn rather quickly, based on the free market, which world view has more validity. Companies and businesses can locate to each state based on the quality of education within its borders, and if Chik-Fil-A wants to leave states that ban religious doctrine from schools, and Starbucks wants to leave states that teach creationism, so be it. The people within each individual state can thrive according to their own beliefs.

Healthcare can become a state by state issue. Instead of sending money to the federal government, states can either create universal healthcare for its citizens or continue with our current system, based on the will of its people. We will learn very quickly which model works best. We can test in real time whether or not freeing individuals and businesses from profit driven insurance pushes up or down healthcare costs. We can test in real time whether or not universal healthcare can be sustainable. The states that thrive can become models for those that struggle.

We can apply this principle to virtually any issue, and by observing in practice which paths work and which don’t, develop long-term courses of action that best serve the country as a whole. We can simplify the tax code by returning the vast majority of tax revenue to each state. We can appease all members of the political spectrum by creating real-life laboratories for their political beliefs, and if they prosper, they can crow about it. If they struggle, they can adapt or perish. Whatever the case, individuals will no longer feel as if the beliefs of others are being forced upon them. If they don’t like the direction of their individual state, they can move somewhere else. I don’t expect this solution to ever be taken seriously or enacted, for starters because it would dismantle the federal juggernaut, but also because it makes rational sense. However, I believe it could solve a lot of our problems within a generation or two.

General Posts

Saturday Night Ramblings

March 23, 2013 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

I feel a cultural movement brewing. For a few decades now, all of our music, books, and movies have been controlled by corporations more concerned with marketing and bottom-line profits than quality. Much of my generation was locked out, not because we didn’t have the talent but because we didn’t fit into tidy marketing pigeonholes, and we languished for years, wondering if we’d ever get our shot. Meanwhile, a new generation moved onto the scene, and many of us felt as if our moment had passed. All our study, all our hours of practice, all of our passion, all of our dreams seemed wasted. Some grew bitter and drifted away. Some became consumed by demons and succumbed to addictions. Some trudged onward. Some of us did all of the above.

But something amazing happened with the burgeoning of the internet and computers. Suddenly, we no longer needed New York and LA to pursue our dreams. Suddenly, the corporations could no longer lock us out because as long as we had internet access we had a potential audience of millions, so many of us started our own labels, presses, and production companies. Sure, at first we struggled. As we wobbled on unsure legs, our early efforts might have seemed like bad parodies, but we learned from our mistakes and pressed onward. We polished our chops, grew our networks, and expanded our base. We survived our early stumbles and the Great Recession. We banded together. On our own, we created new channels to reach more people and studied online marketing trends. We learned and grew and shared information and encouraged each other. Most of all, we survived.

Today, the movement of independents gathers momentum every day. We’ve gained market share and established our reputations as serious artists in our given fields. Through efforts of arduous determination, we’ve moved the mountain enough to be noticed by major media outlets as a legitimate force. The amazing thing about this movement is that most of us are over the age of 35, and we’ve done this while juggling jobs and families and lives. We’ve endured sacrifices corporate executives can never fathom, just to pursue our passion, just to chase our dream, and while we may not be there yet, we’re making great strides to that destination.

The cultural movement of the independents is upon us, and we’re here for the long-haul.

General Posts

Friday Afternoon Ramblings

March 22, 2013 D.A. Adams 5 Comments

Sometimes it’s easy to let the naysayers bring you down, and believe me, there are plenty of naysayers in this world. For my part, I’ve always struggled with a sense of legitimacy and often find myself allowing negativity to create self-doubt, even when that negativity is dis-proportionally small. For example, currently on Amazon I have 80 total reviews for all four books combined. Two of them are 1 star; one is 2 stars; six are 3; and the rest are either 4 or 5. On Goodreads, I currently have 76 ratings with a total average of 4.2 stars, with four 1 and 2 star ratings but twenty-eight 4 and 5 star reviews on book one. Rationally, I look at this and understand I should be proud to have so many positive reviews, but that part of me which feels phony fixates on the bottom end. The self-doubt creeps into my consciousness and ignores all the positive. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this. Neil Gaiman, Bruce Sprinsteen, and Hugh Laurie have all spoken of it.

I think part of why this sense of illegitimacy affects so many creative people is the fact that artistic expressions are so subjective in nature. Mathematicians know for certain whether or not their formulas work. Scientists can prove or disprove a hypothesis, and their results can be tested and repeated by others. Business people can always look at the ledger sheet for validation of their ideas. But for artists, it’s so much more difficult to measure quality or define success. Works that are often commercially successful aren’t always the most well-crafted pieces. For instance, Fifty Shades of Grey made buckets of money, but few people consider it a well-written book. A Confederacy of Dunces is one of the best books ever written but was considered unpublishable during John Kennedy Toole’s lifetime, which in part contributed to his suicide. To get an idea of how maddening it can be for a creative person, just go look at the reviews of any famous work. Even revered classics will have scores of negative ones often filled with disparaging remarks that sometimes get downright personal.

Any creative person is trying to create something new where nothing existed before. There is no secret formula for how this happens, and often we are pulling bits of this and dashes of that from various disciplines and molding them together. Every generation or so, a paradigm will emerge that espouses the one and only way to create the proper way, and anything that doesn’t fit tidily into the dogma of this paradigm will often be dismissed initially as drivel. However, truly creative people typically reject dogmatic approaches because of the inherent restrictions, and this can generate backlash from the establishment. For someone such as myself, this backlash contributes to the feelings of self-doubt. Even though I know in my heart that my writing is solid, my characters are compelling, and my plots are intense, when I read a review that calls my writing “poorly written” because I “don’t follow the rules of a basic writing manual,” part of me rejects that outright but another part, the insecure, vulnerable part, questions my ability. These two parts of me, the bold and the insecure, are often at odds with one another.

The bold part of me, the part that had the courage to self-publish long before it was easy or hip, usually wins out. It does this by reminding me that I’ve survived much worse than anything a narrow-minded, so-called critic can throw at me. As a child, I developed a blood disease from a tick bite. At one point, I weighed about forty pounds and to this day have no memories for about a three month stretch of that spring and summer, but I survived. At sixteen, I was struck in the head by an eight pound shotput and not only lived to tell about it but walked off the field, albeit with a little assistance. If an eight pound cannonball didn’t end my life, the opinion of some piss ant sure as hell won’t. On Christmas day, my now ex-wife told me she wanted a divorce as I played with my sons. If losing custody of my boys didn’t crack my soul, there’s absolutely nothing some smug know-it-all can sling my way that could ever touch me. I’ve endured my share of real hardships and am still standing, still creating works that the vast majority of readers love, still growing my reader base.

I’m working on getting beyond my own insecurities and having more belief in myself, and for the most part, my confidence remains relatively strong the majority of the time. However, sometimes the weak part rears its head and makes me question whether or not I’m on course. Knowing I’m not alone in having these kinds of self-doubts helps. If people far more successful than I am deal with the same emotions, then I can accept their presence and forge ahead with conviction. While the external naysayers will always be present in some form or another, their opinions do not have to influence my internal fortitude. My voice is real. My voice is valuable. Not that I need this for validation, but I have forty-five 5 star reviews on Amazon to prove the worth of my creativity. And I have that calm center deep in my heart which whispers softly that what I’m creating matters, that my stories are good, that success is insignificant in comparison to authenticity.

That’s all for now.