JONTILLMAN.COM | Part of the problem since 1976

I began working on this site on February 14, 2006, a year and a day ago (and almost a decade to the day from my first web site). In that time I have spewed a fair number of words into the aether. I have also learned a lot of lessons along the way.

In honor of that anniversary, here are thirteen things I have learned in the last year, in roughly chronological order.

1. Nobody talks about staying at home without children: Though the internet is clogged with SAHMs and a smaller number of SAHDs, there are no known SAHWs or SAHHs. Either you must havekids as an excuse or wait until you are old enough to be “retired”.
2. Most People Can’t Talk About Anything But Work: Of course, given the amount of time and energy most people put into the jobs they hate, I suppose that isn’t very suprising.
3. I Am Not Cut Out For Time Management: Time management requires a level of compartmentalization and disintegration that I seem not to be capable of.
4. I Have Not Had A Healthy Relationship With Money: I, like most Westerners, spent too much time concentrated on money, and basically made a huge mess of it.
5. Coining A Phrase Is Fun: I am pretty happy with this connection, and my perception of it.Your mileagemay vary.
6. I Am In Complete Control Of Nothing: All I can do is to try a lot of different things and see what works out. The key to success, for all values of success that equate to interesting adventures, is to fail faster!
7. Yeah, It Is That Easy…: I spent a lot of my life listening to other people and hearing a lot of excuses and rationalizations for self-limiting behavior. Funny thing is, they were all wrong.
8. Scandanavia Sounds Better & Better: …the reason the Nordic countries score higher in the WEF study is that their governments run surpluses instead of deficits, cave in to special interests less often, operate efficiently and spend their money wisely.
9. :There Is A Holiday For Me: and I don’t mean Festivus…
10. The Work Ethic Doesn’t Make Any Sense: What is the point of speaking or even thinking, about the future in a society where Immediatism has sprung up as the new national religion (just in time to replace anti-communism)? Is it any longer possible to be the “authors of our lives”, given the constant disloyalty and paranoia fed to us as “flexibility” and “dynamism”?
11. You Cannot Have/Do/Be Everything: No matter what they told you, the world is not your oyster, and the wreckage of their lives should be a warning to you that they do not know what they are talking about.
12. Americans Don’t Read Much:And the majority of what they do read is paperback trash.
13. Libertarians Just Aren’t Very Bright: But the really, really want to seem so.