July 20, 2000 ~ Price of Knowledge

"But isn't all an upward motion? Aren't we all always moving up in this, our world? Like an Escher drawing of the stairs, where the people can just keep walking up and up, even though they are walking around the same square stairs? There is no low point?"

"Son, don't let capitalism rot your brain. They can just as easily turn around and keep walking down and down and down those stairs. Look at our bodies. They do not get newer and better. They deteriorate as we age. Sometimes our worldly successes mimic that decline. It is easy, so very easy, to take a nasty fall while climbing the corporate ladder."

Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, it doesn't matter one bit. I woke up from the American Dream a long time ago. I don't have those goals anymore. But I am still stuck in the system that created that Dream. I still have to play by the rules if I want anything back.

Who is the bloody bastard who first came up with the idea that what one puts into one's mind should be paid for? Who decided that knowledge would cost money? I just want to learn. I respect my Professors. Unfortunately, I cannot learn from them unless I pay for the knowledge they give me.

I have slept since my entry last night. Perspectives have changed a bit.

Yes, it is all terribly unfair. I work so very hard, giving up everything I have just to get an education when some of my classmates have it all paid for automatically by their parents. Even with all of this work, I still may not make it.

Yes, it is ironic that I start out with ambition, saying, "I want to learn all that I can," but the only way I can do that is if I give large amounts of money. How do I get large amounts of money? If I have an education. How do I get an education? With large amounts of money. There's something stinky here.

I suppose if I were an inner-city Native American woman who played football and had a 4.0 in high school, then maybe I would be set. Yep. But guess what. I only fit the "woman" part of that. I am not Native American, I despise football, and I had a 3.85 in high school. (Now I have a 4.0, but that doesn't seem to count for anything).

I don't like being absolutely powerless. There is nothing I can do. As Romeo says, "I am fortune's fool." I am in the hands of fate.

"It will just work out. It always works out," says Morgan. I agree; it will work out. I am going to trust God / the powers that be that it will work out. Who knows how... but I've been homeless before; I know how to survive.

I just hope it doesn't come to that.

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