Before I get to Part II of that thingy abou ttaking over the world blah blah blah - I will digress with my usual complaints, whinges, rants about my life.
Some people just liek to argue. My mother is one of these sorts of people.
Today, she claimed that the only reason both people in a relationship work in Australia, is because of GREED. I disagreed and told her that for lower income families, it was a necessity for both to work. She disagreed and told me it was 100% pure greed.
I recognised her mood, and decided that regardless of what followed, I'd just stand there and agree with her.
To my surprise, her arguement actually backed up what I'd said. She continued:
- In her days people didn't own cars! Cars were a luxury item! You need them to drive kids to school now, because you can't let them walk to school in case they get kidnapped or assulted! In her day, they let all the kids walk to school! Now you can't do that!
- In her day, there was a baker, and a milkman and a butcher who all deliverd yoru food to your door! Now you need a car to go shopping, as no one delivers. (NOTE: I did pay to have my groceries delivered once, and they arrived four hours after purchase and all the frozen goods were melted!!!)
- In her day, you could go out and leave the doors unlocked! Now, you have to have insurance and have security! No one had even heard of insurrance in her day.
While she babbled on, I didn't correct her about her 'GREED' hypothosis. Sure, there is some truth that people are more materialistic today. That wasn't my point. The difference between the 'haves' and 'have nots' now a days is growing larger. Lower income families do need to have both parents working in order to have some of these things ... like a car. I also know a lot of these families who can't afford a car. The very point I was trying to make, was being made by my mother and her examples. I decided to stand there agreeing with her. (It would have been dangerous to point out she'd swapped her ide of the arguement).
Only, agreeing wasn't enough. As soon as I said, 'Yeah!' in agreement to something she said, she repied with, 'NO!' and repeated her point, as though I had disagreed with her!
I thought, 'Okay, it's one of those days.'
I then stood there without saying a word and let her rant. Sometimes, people just need to rant to get something out of their system. She was in a bad mood yesterday, though I don't know why. She was yelling at everyone (my brother and the dogs). I escaped and sat on the computer taking over the world (as I usually do)
'Shogun Total War' ... well that's taking over Japan
'Axis and Allies' - a war game of WWII, and then I reloaded. I absolutely kill it on the most difficult level.
'Railway Tycoon II Gold edition' - I reloaded it and started from scratch. I've won that on the hardest level before. I must have forgotten how it works, as I got stuck on the third scenario. Kept repeatedly getting silver medals instead of gold. DARN!
I realised something about the game too ... often I don't like the aim of the scenario and prefer to do my own thing. In the third scenario, you are supposed to create a train line from the US East to the US West Coast. I find I prefer to just join up all the things and make money. (Like connecting the iron and coal mines to th Steel mill to produce steel. Or connecting the grain to the cattle ranch and then connecting the ranch to the meat packing plant!) You get the idea.
In the end, I played the scenario through without even trying to get to the West Coast (This was about my seventh attempt to do better than Silver Medal). I just connected everything in the east. If it was the real world, I probably would have been considered a great success, as I made a lot of money (well, the railroad did). Actually, it was absolutely gushing money!!! I lost the game though, as I didn't complete the task set.
Isn't life sometimes like that though. We are set one task to do, but there is always something more intersting somewhere else. Why do we spend our lives doing the tasks set by others, when we can follow our own paths? I guess that's one of the reasons I'm starting my own business. I'd rather go off in directions I want to explore rather than being placed in a situation where I am at the mercy of someone else. Of course, the danger in doing this, is we are then subject to the tides of life which may take us in directions we can't control. We have to steer our own boat, and hope that we don't hit rocks and that we have some skills in navigating our way to our chosen destination.
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