If you read The Civilian Noninstitutional Population post, you might have wondered… where is all of this coming from?

Why is this guy talking about economics, and why should I bother reading it?

Well, this new series of posts I’ve started are directly picking back up on economic studies I developed back in 2008-2011 as part of my conceptual art think tank, Ape Con Myth.

My story of working with data goes back much further though.

I was fascinated by numbers at an early age.

But far from being able to claim any understanding of it, I think initially I might have been drawn to finance simply from the daily stock market report flashing numbers with strange abbreviations in front of me.

I didn’t know what any of it meant, but it looked like fun, and thanks to shows like Family Ties and movies like Wall Street, the mirage of the markets got me out the door, to New York City and business school.

As it went though, I was disillusioned by the whole thing on the first day of Economics 101.

All it took was seeing the supply and demand curves for me to think better of it all.

Supply and demand are too easily manipulated for it to be the basis of so much, especially when it comes to the way we make our living and attempt to survive.

Ironically, it was leaving business school to study dramatic writing and literature that eventually led me back to my own study of economics, as I literally and figuratively struggled with the concept of making a living firsthand.

That was ultimately the genesis of Ape Con Myth, which operated under the header: “the struggle for survival is an incredible waste of time.”

The premise that we are wasting our lives trying to make a living has only grown more concrete in my mind, from both personal experience and paying attention to the world around me.

Look at us. Look at this mess. We aren’t even trying to make it easier on ourselves.

Supply and demand are getting the best of us all, and it warps the spacetime of our lives every day.

That is in effect why I’m here. That is why everything you see on this site is happening.

We needlessly suffer and struggle. I don’t think it has to be like that.

What do you think?

To create… well, with my brand of creation at least, … it is like working in a laboratory of one’s self.

I am here this morning surrounded by all my lab equipment, my past work, and my active experiments, which take the form of the files and windows open and stored on all these computers, the papers on the wall and in all these boxes and drawers, and all the things swirling around in my head that haven’t made it out yet.

It is a wonderland.

But in the larger scope of things, there is always my life, which impacts the disposition and flow in this lab.

Time spent is the precious commodity, and what I have to spend it on often overwhelms and displaces what I would like to spend it on.

Everything goes in phases though.

This is a self-conscious one for me.

A time of renewal and recalibration.

It’s not the first time I’ve been here. I know this place because it usually coincides with me returning to the Tao Te Ching.

D.C. Lau’s 1963 translation is my preferred version, and it begins…

The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way;
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.

As a generalist, I have had an easier time connecting with these two simple yet daunting concepts that stand at the beginning of this work.

For someone who somewhat needs and seems to thrive in a basic routine, my every day, every week, and every month are nothing but different. It doesn’t matter how consistent the schedule is, the experience is never the same. Even when I like and particularly note a pattern, I cannot seem to repeat it.

But I’ve been reading those words above over and over again since high school and I do like to think that part of my operating system has been written with them in mind.

Who can keep up with the ideas that are actually sticking over time though?!

The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.

These two lines are easy to pass over, perhaps because of the rug that they pull out from under us, said myriad creatures. We didn’t come with names, we were given them.

We have given names to everything we could think to name, while not knowing what we were missing.

And that’s where these next two lines come in. They identify the self-conscious moment I’m in right now…

Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.

There is it. The precious moment I’m having is being rid of any specific desires for a moment.

“Allowing” myself to have desires is not often a choice, once an idea takes hold.

The Papercuts Library is in effect a tunnel I’m emerging from after nearly seven years.

So many forces shaped the reasoning that led me there. And as a vehicle, it has served me well in its purpose. … It is not going away either. … However I am in the midst of shifting my creative center of gravity.

I have long preferred not to utilize this website for reasons we will be exploring along the way, but for the moment, suffice to say, I’m stepping out of the vehicle of a book series and into the vehicle of myself.*

My laboratory … or whatever this existence is and represents.

But sitting here without desire, I am observing the secrets of The Way. … And I’m trying to learn what I can, while I can, because I know soon enough an idea will take hold and I will be off on my merry and directed way toward a new destination, observing its manifestations.

What I haven’t cracked yet is the end of this first chapter:

These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery –
The gateway of the manifold secrets.

So you are never without The Way, whether driven mad by desire or sitting there like a rock.

This faucet is always on.

Being aware of that is the key, and the challenge.

There are eighty more chapters to this amazing work if you are interested in being challenged as such.

I cannot recommend it more.

In my copy you can still see the six or so lines I highlighted back in high school. They were the only ones I felt I understood at the time.

Even now, I wouldn’t necessarily claim to understand any of it, while also feeling that I am helplessly living it in more ways than I’ve ever noticed or imagined.

It’s that kind of thing.

You can’t put a name on it.

Embrace that.

*It’s all in the packaging, folks.

There it is, you don’t even need the rest of the book.