The Margarine Manifesto

Part One: Counting My Blessings

In no particular order:

1. My apartment
2. My neighborhood
3. My city
4. My education
5. My quirk
6. My steady reliable income
7. My family
8. My friends

Part Two: Setting the Scene

I considered making toast for breakfast. Instead I ate half a chocolate bar and had four cups of coffee. I'm still in pajamas.

Part Three: Panic / First Response

In order:

• Sleep in
• Take a long shower
• Go for a walk
• Indulge long email threads with old friends
• Take the subway somewhere you've never been
• Read job listings in other career fields
• Flip through the dictionary, learn new words like feasance and outre
• Write a manifesto

Part Four: The Woods

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promissory notes to keep
And I have promissory notes to keep.

Part Five: Panic / Second Response

In no particular order:

• Take a class
• Get a dog
• Leave the city
• Leave the country
• Move to the country
• Enroll in grad school
• Get a houseboat
• Get an Airstream
• Get a horse
• Hike the back country
• Join the army
• Join the Peace Corp
• Join anything
• Start a magazine
• Start a novel
• Start a memoir
• Start a religion
• Finish something
• etc.

Part Six: Things That Sometimes Hold Me Back

In no particular order:

1. My apartment
2. My neighborhood
3. My city
4. My education
5. My quirk
6. My steady reliable income
7. My family
8. My friends

Part Seven: Capitalism

Capitalism is the system by which we (the capitalists) take whatever amount of initial wealth we are dealt (the capital), and then, by hook or crook, make our best effort to multiply this wealth through the opportunities afforded to us.

If one's wealth is zero, then no amount of opportunity will lead to more wealth: zero times anything is zero.

If one's opportunity is low, then no amount of initial wealth will lead to more wealth. Pursuing a poor opportunity (i.e., a multiplier < 1) may in fact lead to less wealth—even if it is the best opportunity available at the time.

The model is complicated by the fact that greater wealth leads to greater opportunity, and lesser wealth to lesser opportunity.

Part Eight: On Margarine

I considered making toast for breakfast. The making of toast presents a choice. One may:

1. apply butter to one's toast
2. apply margarine
3. leave one's toast as is

Butter is a bad choice, because it contains saturated animal fat, which leads to heart disease; and because it contains lactose, which is hard to digest.

Margarine is a bad choice, because it contains hydrogenated vegetable oil, which is high in cholesterol and is associated with cancer; and anyway, it tastes a little funny.

Dry toast is a bad choice, because it is not very satisfying, and one only eats breakfast once a day, so it should be satisfying.

Sometimes all of the choices are bad. Hence, I had half a chocolate bar.

Part Nine: Global Free Trade

The premise of global free trade is that, unfettered by local restrictions, we are free to choose from a wider set of capitalistic opportunities: if Country Y offer more opportunities to multiply one's wealth than Country X, logically one should pursue those opportunities with Country Y. One is "free" to "trade" loyalties and obligations, when presented with a better chance at greater wealth.

Thus, if one has the opportunity to flee a country, and leave the jurisdiction of one's massive debt, thereby breaking the promise to repay, for the sake of a fresh start, then this is simply holding with the premise of global free trade:

An outre solution: not submissive feasance; not irresponsible malfeasance; but legitimized non-feasance.

Part Ten: The Woods

In the deepest parts of the woods, there are no forking paths, because there are no paths. The eye looks at the spaces between the trees and, connecting them, imagines a path where there is none. We walk these imaginary paths, marching forward into the woods, unafraid, till something causes our faith to waiver; and then we wonder: Am I lost? Is this a path I'm on now? Or am I merely in the unconnected spaces between trees? Am I on a walk, or have I gone for a hike in the back country? This thing that I started, this thing that I am doing—is it something I can finish? Can I finish anything? When a path seems to fork, are any of the choices good ones? Or is there no path at all?