Monday, July 24, 2000

12:32 a.m. This month is just chugging along -- I looked up at the calendar and realized that the reason today seemed so short and compressed is because it's one of those days that are squashed two-to-one square on the calendar. In one more week, this month will be over.

The man in the picture is the owner and operator of a little steam motor boat that was part of the show at the Marina yesterday. He has just filled the boiler in the middle of his motor boat with stick of wood and has somehow managed to divert the steam into powering his vehicle.

I know that one of the main reasons why the Survivor show is so popular, at least with me, is because of unknown skills and talents. There are so many motors spinning on this planet, and most people only know how to work a few of them. We can watch the Survivor women sewing up a thatched hut and the Survivor men -- well, they mostly just lollygag around and play cards, as in real life.

But yesterday, when we actually managed to fix part of the outboard motor, both Igor and I felt extremely clever and strong. I could feel the muscles on my body sprout. I had an urge to wear a sarong. Actually, while walking past the steam-engine boats lined up at the dock, what I really wanted to do was rent African Queen and watch it again.

If you like Survivor and you haven't seen that movie, do yourself a favor. Indulge.

Of course, having spent all day yesterday away from the computer, I came back to my desk with a certain degree of guilt. I seem to be running behind on each and every project, but I think the day away actually gave me a little extra energy along with the guilt. I don't think I looked up once today from my appointed rounds.

The pay-per-view controversy over web journals continues to bubble. I continue to work (for pay) every single minute of the day, except these few sweet minutes when I write these words. This journal feels like the olly olly in-free at the end of the hard-played game of grab the penny that I perform every day.

It feels like a solid stepping stone in a fast-moving stream. I look back at the solid stone of yesterday. I wait for 24 hours and another stone appears and I take another step. I don't know exactly where I'm going, but I do know that a path is forming.

In fact, I made a still, quiet, personal peace with money a few years ago. I used to think that if you were good enough, or if you worked hard enough, you would most certainly become rich. If you weren't yet rich, you just weren't trying hard enough. Money was the objective measure of your worth.

And then.

And then I met quite a few rich people whose only real skill was theft. I met a few extremely talented people who were poor because they forgot to watch their backs. Guess what? The surest way to win any game is to cheat. The quickest way to get a lot of money is to steal. The fastest way to impress people is to lie. The best way to become successful: lie, cheat, and steal.

Let the lawyers sort out the legalities. Let the reporters root out the inconsistencies. Let the historians dig up the buried facts and let the nutcases try to right the wrongs long, long after the checks have been cashed.

I know this sounds overly cynical, but I'm not at all discouraged or dismayed by these facts. Sure, O.J. got away with it. Sure, really rotten movies, plays, and books are hyped and really good ones are neglected. Sure, bad people sue good people every single day and often they win the lawsuit because the good person never dreamed he'd have to prove his innocence when he never did anything wrong in the first place.

And I know that it also took me an awfully long time to realize that people lie, people cheat, and people take your little knickknacks if you're not looking. But it hasn't really bothered me all that much in the long run. I still think the good and the honest man and woman will always win in the end. I really do.

Once you figure out what the game is really all about, you realize it can't be about money, after all. Because if that were the case, the rich would never die.