Everyone Else Knows Best

I have been working on some life modifications lately. I guess these are more life hacks --- in the sense that I'm taking a machete to things and hacking away at things that aren't working anymore. In preparing for these major changes, I have been talking to friends and family about my plans. I am actively trying to work through a complex financial problem, so I am talking to people I know and trust to feel it out. In my explorations, I have found that everybody has the answer -- everyone, other than me.

When I say I am working through a  complex problem, I mean, I am working through a set of financial realities that I did not adequately anticipate. I did not anticipate that graduate school would fling me into more debt, despite being "funded." I did not anticipate a job market that would lead to one viable hire, 11 months after school. And I did not anticipate that I would get a master's degree and suddenly be worth less than 60% of what I was before my master's degree.

The problem that I am trying to solve is this: On an $1,850/month real income (net income minus core living expenses), I am somehow supposed to eat food, buy gas, have recreation... and here's the problem... also pay student loan payments, pay back-taxes from 2014, in which I took a job that led to a $3,000 tax bill. Oh, and I am somehow also supposed to muster the money to do activities that make me fun, interesting, and social.

That doesn't sound like much, you say -- just take it slow and be patient. Well, let me tell you; I've heard that line a time or two in the last few months. Yeah, I definitely should be patient. Patience is the right thing to do when your $1850/month income is reduced to $0.00 after rent, utilities, phone, gas, and food.

Oh, I'm spending too much! Right. I knew it, you're right. I'm just spending too much. I need to cut back. Because my oatmeal breakfasts, peanut butter sandwitches for lunch, and sweet potato dinners are just too extravagant for my income... I definitely am just spending too much, somehow.

Well, you're all right. I am spending too much. Here's the full breakdown of the core expenses:

$1,850.00/mo Net Income
-475.00 Rent
-140.00 Insurance
-130.00 Storage
-80.00 Utilities (probably average)
-70.00 Phone
-59.00 Credit Card Payment
------------------------------------
$895/mo leftover for everything else.

Given that "everything else" includes groceries ($250/mo), gas ($30/mo just to get to work and back, 3 days per week, and then recreational gas to see family friends -- $150 total), and then recreational gas expenses... I'm actually left with $495/mo for recreation, going out with friends, and paying student loans. But one of those things is not like the other thing....

The $495/month I am left with after core living expenses handles car repairs, unexpected expenses, going out, and student loans. After these things, this number is $0.00.

Given that I am to be left with $0.00 each month, I am not sure how I am to make progress on paying my credit card off? How am I supposed to pay more than my student loan bill? Am I really going to make minimum payments for the next x-years? Am I really supposed to live paycheck to paycheck like this, as a graduate with something like 200 college credits, including graduate work?

But everybody else has the answer. Breathe. Be patient. Get a second job. Cut back on your expenses. Decrease your spending. I've heard so many helpful ideas. But what if the answer is bound by absolute realities that cannot be overcome with these conventional thoughts?

What if my reality is that I owe $3000 in taxes, $1900 in credit card debt, and no way to save a dollar each month? And what if these conventional ideas for solving my problem aren't actually the solutions to my problem?

Well, of course everyone else knows better than I do. After all, I am about to live in an ultralight travel trailer on the street. Like a crazy person. And everybody knows that it's a bad idea.

The problem I am trying to solve here is: How do I flip my financial system for the better, using skills I already have? And how do I pay off these remnants from graduate school and unemployment while also planning to pay student loans?

The answer that I have come up with is to not pay rent and utilities.

Of course this answer isn't popular. It's the answer that shows that I am impatient. It's the answer that shows that I am clearly miscalculating something.

If I move into the lightweight travel trailer, I will eliminate rent, utilities, and much of my commuting cost, which is 20 miles per day, to and from work. The resulting system allows me to save roughly $600 per month, in addition to whatever else I can recoup from the $495 noted above. Which means that I go from having effectively zero buffer to having upwards of $1000/month open for saving, going out, or hell, even just giving me peace of mind that I am okay.

Everyone else knows best, though. My problem is so simple. It's just... or just that... or that I'm... and so on. The reality I face is a totally unsustainable system of financial players and features. Sure, I should just have my parents help me with my student loans --- but should I, really? What is it about what I've done that has led me to not having the ability to pay my costs of existence? I work in the sustainability industry, yet my life system is unsustainable by default of owing too much and making too little.

Of course I will work on cutting down my expenses. Of course I will work on my patience. And of course I will look at a second, third, and/or another job with more hours... but until then, I am operating in disaster mode, and my disaster mode is a lot different than everyone else's. I am working to make my system sustainable.

The Child Support Generation

Millennials are the generation after Gen X. We were born between 1978 and 2000 by most of the definitions I have seen. This generation is whipped, prodded, observed, and criticized in a way that past generations have not been. Born into the age of the internet, television, and information everywhere, we are both products of rapidly available, mass information, and we are the subjects of it.

Studied in every dimension, including our sexual habits, arrested development, and our place among other generations. Born in 1983, I am a Millennial. And I can tell you a think or two about my generation.

My generation is in a very weird place. Some of us were growing up in some of the best economic times, and some of us were born into the worst recession since The Great Depression. The divide in my generation is loud, large, and has created two generations, where most only recognize one.

The Millennial Generation is not one generation. It is two. And the Millennials aren’t just a generation; they are an economic and social class. There’s a contradiction there, but it is for a very good reason.

The way we define generations is kind of stupid, which is okay – most of the things we think are stupid, yet useful in some ways. The way we think about Millennials and generations is a remnant of prior thought processes, which allows for the grouping of people by some common thread. In this case, the date range in which we are born.

The problem with Millennials is more complicated than most people think. The generation is not as homogenous as our idiot academics have framed the discourse about Millennials. I am one of those idiot academics, and perhaps guilty, just by talking about these kids in this way.

But back to the point: The Millennial Generation is a single generation that has two sub-generations within it and the generation actually has its own social and class structure, in part like every other generation, with some unique characteristics.

As I get to know more and more people from my generation, I have come to realize that the oddities and extremes are those who are trying to achieve or are achieving “independence.” Independence used to be a thing; a goal; and a way to identify whether one was successful. It was also not really an option – graduate from high school, get a job or go to college, and wean yourself off the parental cash teat suddenly and by the age of 21.

Back in the day, before the day of the Millennial, this thing called independence was achievable. It wasn’t something that could only happen by 35 or 40, and college was something reserved for only the top students with the most richest parents. And of course there’s myth involved here. Prior generations weren’t perfect, either. So many screw ups have built us up to this point.

Millennials are the generation of parental support. Members of my generation live the lives of the rich and famous on wages that are too small to pay living costs today; drive nicer cars than my parents do; and eat better food at nicer restaurants than I experienced until I was making over $50,000 per year in a professional job.

My generation is the generation of child support – and I don’t just mean the money that daddy pays to mommy after the divorce… I mean the money that mommy and daddy pay little Joey to pay his or her bills and have food on their plate.

And I hate ripping on my generation. But my generation has a class problem that has nothing to do with disparities in education and personal income. My generation has a class problem that stems from the parents of the Millennial Generation.

The class problem in the Millennial Generation is that there are kids who are supported by their parents, indefinitely, and there are kids who are trying to achieve independence, either by force or by choice. Though, let’s be real; Rarely by choice. Who would ever try for independence by choice? It’s miserable.

The kids around me are largely parentally funded. Almost every day, I learn of someone new who is making $16 per hour, living in a haughty place, like Denver or San Diego, and is still living the rock ‘n roll lifestyle.

The problem isn’t that Millennials are living well – it’s that they’re living in their parents’ tax bracket, not their own. $16 per hour isn’t enough to afford a $1,100/month apartment, a newer car, insurance, cell phone, and the party life. Just the list above leaves the 40 hour per week bloke with negatives in their account register.

So, what the fuck is going on? Why is the Millennial Generation such a bunch of screw ups? Why are some of us living in RV’s and looking at living in their truck, while others are living in downtown Denver and eating sushi on half the wage?

The reason is that the prior generations have propped my generation with such rickety scaffolding that all we are is a façade of success and economic health. My generation will see more bubbles in short order, and it will come as these perma-child-support kids start to have to achieve independence.

As their rent bills start to become their own responsibility and there is no longer a parental care check that buys the sushi and martini’s, my generation will cause yet another economic collapse. My Millennial Generation is an intensely poor class, as far as wages go, yet an extremely rich class as far as quality of life goes.

Quality of life costs money – a lot of money. And my generation isn’t making it. Many of my engineer friends are doing well – they have good pay that most often pays more than the average household income for the USA. Yet, even some of them struggle with money. Considering that many of them are making over $25/hour, the new minimum wage for independent living appears to rest around $20 per hour for just about anywhere in my area.

The problem with The Millennial Generation isn’t what many of the professional academics appear to think is wrong. The problem is the parents of the Millennial Generation. The parents have created a class divide within the generation that will be very difficult to reconcile as time goes on. New cars, sushi dinners, college tuition bills that total up to the sixth figure, and an indefinite pool of backup cash has shaped my generation.

For those of us who are trying to achieve independence, and particularly those who are doing it; The vision isn’t pretty. Even $25 or $30 an hour is no longer enough to live the rock star lifestyle. After taxes, rent, food, gas, insurance, utilities, and such, even $30 per hour quickly goes away. And it goes away because of the relative value of that amount on the market.

Relative value is what this economic problem is all about. Those who have money provided have bumped up the value of everything else. These supported individuals can buy without having the individual economic value to buy on their own. In other words, one Millennial has the buying power of potentially two professionally successful parents, without any of that success on their own.

Whether this is a problem or not is up to the beholder. Is it a problem when a 28 year old is making $16 per hour and cannot actually afford to live anywhere but the most squalid places, yet is living like that of someone making $30+/hour? If not, cool – seems like a utopia for such individuals. For me, that looks like a $14/hour deficit. Is it you or your parents in this income tax bracket, as Cake says.

I think the Millennial Generation is misunderstood. I think we’re better in some ways than we get credit for and far worse in others. I look at my generation and realize that I’m looking at an awful lot of people who are actually bordering on homelessness, but are propped up by their parents. It must be nice to have the whole world melting down around you, yet be insulated from the bare economic forces. It would just be nice to see more humble attitudes get sold along with those molten-lava-resistant kicks mommy and daddy bought you.

I’m going to continue being independent, but I’m going to continue to do it off grid and off market. Mark my hashtag.

Minimum Wage is Different for College Grads

I figure that you should never go more into student debt than you will make in at your first job, in your first year out of school. In other words, never go more into student debt than your first annual salary will be. Even then, the debt burden is large. And college grads have to make more to account for their debt payments.

The process of paying for school looks very different for those who are burdened with the debt themselves. Student loan payments end up being a 10-25 year commitment that will continually garnish some of our wages. Yes, "garnish."

Thinking of student debt as wage garnishment is a little different. I refer to it this way because it is a mandatory cost to get the wages and jobs that will help us pay these debts. Every month, a bill comes that takes away a percentage of a paycheck, which was a cost to get that paycheck.

If a student graduates with an average starting salary of around $30,000 per year, their likely base living expenses before food, gas, fun, and car, are likely to be around 60-70% of that amount. Just rent, utilities, taxes, and insurance (of all kinds) will consume $18,000-$21,000 of their gross income. That leaves roughly $9,000 per year for food, fun, car, and student loan payments.

For the student who is paying their student loans on their own, they're not left with much. Sure, you could feed a family in Africa for like a decade on the $9,000 per year leftover, but you sure aren't going to be eating much in America on that little money. Especially with car repairs, food, dates, and student loans coming out of the same pot.

The point is that there is a new minimum wage that most don't recognize -- it's the minimum wage for a college graduate. College graduates bearing a student debt burden have to make more out of the gate to compensate for the debt payments.

The college grad minimum wage is the amount it costs to live a healthy life in addition to student loan payments. The thing is, we're all supposed to be saving to buy a houses, too. And our cars are wearing out. And we need new clothes to be professional, too.

Incomes after school have to be higher to compensate for the cost of schooling. And let's be honest -- a college grad shouldn't be eating ramen for years after school while paying off debts. For those who are, college has failed them and left them worse off than if they had skipped it all together.

The creation of this new breed of low-paid, post-graduate that can barely afford to live well with their debt burdens is nasty. We're creating drones to pay student loans -- Student Loan Drones. And it's not good. Someone with a college degree needs extra pay right out of the gate to pay off their loans. I also think we all went to college so we could live better, faster, and for longer -- yet we're burdened with these toxic debts that completely garnish our wages for decades after school. The system is broken.

I Am Counterculture

Culture? Everybody uses this word, but so few have any clue what it means or how it works. Counterculture is a new word born from hipsters and technologists that means an intentional counter-movement to balance the mainstream thought process. It's all a bunch of horseshit. That is, until somebody loses their fucking mind and decides to live in a vehicle.

Listen, something is really wrong with the job market and living expenses. "The Rent Is Too Damn High" is a political party. It's headed by a crazy person, but the sentiment is damn straight. You know what else is too damn high? The price of rent. The price of food. The price of gas. The amount the lower-incomes pay in taxes. The cost of health insurance. The cost of car insurance. And the price of homes.

The list goes on, but one thing is for sure -- we're all fucking screwed.

Not all of us, of course. Those who are insulated from nature and the markets are doing great -- they have no clue that the world is melting down around them. For those who are trying this thing called "independence" and "starting out," the world looks very, very different.

Here's the thing. I just overdrew my bank accounts to buy food and gas. Yes, food and gas. I'm a working professional, living in an RV, making over $30/hour, and I just overdrew my accounts on food, gas, and living expenses. Why?

The reason is that I'm paying too goddamned much in rent, utilities, and living expenses. I can barely even afford to fix my cars. And that's a problem.

I talked to a friend recently who chided me for having student debt -- I told her that I still have undergrad debt and my graduate student debt came directly from buying myself out of my old life and spending 11 months looking for a new job.

So, while I'm sitting here feeling like a retard for racking up $32 in bank over-draw fees, I'm realizing that there's something even more massively wrong with our system than I initially realized.

I am working at a job that pays a great wage, with great benefits, and with great potential for growth. But with student debt, as a college graduate, my wages are garnished so much, there is an absolute minimum that I can afford to make before I am actually doing worse than someone without a degree at all...

Here's the thing: Getting an education is great, but it doesn't pay anymore. The amounts that we think of good wages are no longer good wages. And if a worker has student debt, they have to consider their student debt in their calculation of their success.

Right now, I'm working a half time job that pays more than my first full-time post-bachelor job. That means I am worth fully 100% more today than the day I graduated from my undergrad. And it's not enough. It's not that I'm doing something wrong or different.

The problem is not my income, my wages, or my choices -- the problem is the amounts that are deducted from my paychecks. In prior posts, I explored how much I lose to taxes and such, but it's worse than I ever thought.

I lose 25% of my paychecks to taxes, medicare, medicaid, and all those other mandatory paycheck deductions. I lose another 6% to medical insurance costs. That means that I start my month with 69% of my gross paycheck.

Of that 69%, I spend 35% on other mandatory expenditures, including rent, cell phone, utilities, and heating (spring, winter, and fall only). That means that I am left with 34% of my paycheck after taxes (yielding net income), and living expenses (yielding what I am calling "real income"). Of that 34%, student loans have to come out of it, vehicle repairs, food, gas, fun, and all other expenses that make life go-round.

What I've found is that I now have a fundamental choice: Pay student loans, or pay rent. Did you notice how the choice is "OR," not "AND"? I can pay rent OR student loans.

Congratulations to me -- my education has bankrupted me. Bankrupted. Bankrupted is when your expenses are greater than your income. Mine, though minimal, are now officially greater than my income.

And here's what I'm going to do about it: Fuck society. I'm going to fuck society. I'm going to leave the markets, leave the grid, and hit the road. I'm going to keep working to pay off this awful debt, but I will be doing it as a street-dweller.

Yep. The education bubble is upon us. And I am the new counterculture. It's normal to have student debt, you say? Well, it's also normal to go to prison once or twice in a lifetime, but I'm not going to do that.

Counterculture is a negative, distruptive reaction to the mainstream thought process. I will not live with this debt. I will pay it off and I will do it with grace. I am leaving the system. I am going off market and off grid. The counterculture to student debt and the academic institution have begun.

Poverty Line and Student Loans

The world looks very different to graduated students with student loans. Whether $10,000, $40,000, or $200,000, the post-grad with student debt lives in a different financial system than the student without. In the job market, the student with debt is treated the same as the student without. Regardless of the difference, there is a fundamental lesson for the college graduate that changes the way the post-graduate approaches employment.

Students go to college because it is needed to get a "good job" in today's economy. Or they want to "make a difference." The good job is supposed to come with higher pay, particularly for the long-haul. Making a difference often is an inherent side-effect of the degree, but can also be a core feature of one's employment.

When looking for jobs after graduation, there are a couple of trends I have noticed. The first is that those in the applied sciences (e.g., engineering) are immediately valuable and in demand. The second is that those in the humanities are not in demand for anything but their ability to handle a project and adapt to a variety of duties.

For those in the applied sciences, wages appear to be higher than average, and potentially pay-off quickly. For those outside the applied sciences, the balance between degree and income is far more complex.

Post-graduates with student loan debt need to be especially mindful of their future incomes. Starting incomes are often low and are offered at generalized jobs that do not require much specialization. Which is great -- otherwise, where in the world would someone with a degree in English Literature ever work, other than a bookstore?

Debt creates an economic problem between the degree-seeker, their debt, and the job market. While a college degree prepares a student for a variety of encounters after school, if the jobs they are "qualified" for or are hireable only pay so much, their degree could be for naught.

The degree is for naught when the monthly payment amount on the loan drives the net income of the worker to near, at, or below the amount they would have made without a degree.

When talking about the poverty line, this consideration needs to be taken into account. For instance, if someone took out a $40,000 loan, which will enjoy a payment of roughly $350 per month for ten years, their net income would need to exceed the amount they would have made without the degree.

And the calculation isn't just that simple. Foregone wages have to be taken into account in this calculation. A student doesn't just have $40,000 in student debt, they have that amount in student debt PLUS the foregone wages at the best job they could have gotten for the entire duration of the degree.

Sure, someone without a degree isn't all that valuable on the job market anymore, but would they not become valuable given the same amount of effort of college applied to a workplace or apprenticeship?

The amounts in student debt that my generation is leaving their college career with is crippling. The jobs available are not paying enough in relation to this big debt that some college graduates face. The amount of debt needs to start paying for itself quickly, or else it wasn't worthwhile to begin with.

Poverty line shifts when student loans are involved. Of course some students have their loans or schooling paid for by parents, but that doesn't change the economic reality that college costs money. And college has hidden costs that are rarely or never accounted for.

For those with student loans, the poverty line is shifted because wages are directly curtailed by student debt for a full third of one's career. If student loans cost someone $400 per month for ten years, that is $4,800 in lost wages off the net annual income of the post-graduate.

If money is a motivator, or at least a controller of one's destiny, the presence and amounts of student debt are fundamental determinants of one's success after school. And a post-graduate should calculate their real income with student loans deducted.

I think I just coined a new concept: "Real Income." I consider this word to mean one's net income, including taxes, medical insurance, and student debt payments. The reason being: The amount you actually make is the amount that is left over after the absolutely mandatory deductions are removed from the amount you think you make.

The Landlord Paradox

So rent prices are soaring. That's both good and bad for me. Well, I guess it's good for me and bad for everyone else. Rents in my hometown have increased about 11% in the last year alone, which for a $1000/mo property, is a shiny new lease of $1,110. Great for landlords and horrible for renters.

The rental prices are getting so bad, a new report in my hometown shows that homelessness is increasing with rent prices -- people are basically getting priced out of their hometown and are having to hit the street.

One thing I don't understand about the rent markets right now is how they are working. How are housing prices going up so much that local jobs are not paying enough to live in a house in the town, yet there are people flooding the area with enough money to push others out?

I suppose, after all of my education, a hole has been revealed in my idiotic education. At a fundamental level, I don't understand how there is more money coming into a place to pay rents than is being produced in a place from wages? That is what we are facing, after all.

The rent prices in my hometown are being increased by demand, which means there is a glut of people who are willing to pay, but a shortage of places to house them. With vacancy rates so low, the housing industry should be exploding, yet the price of rent is just increasing. Where is this glut of people coming from and how are they paying these rents?

Clearly, I don't get it. I would love to have it explained. Are there people out there with enough money in the bank to throw it away on rent? Are these newcomers somehow better suited to higher paying jobs, elsewhere than the town itself (commuters)? Are they better at managing money and living slim with high rents and mediocre wages?

My current theory is that there are numerous people moving in with external help. These groups come from families with money, or from other places where wages were very high (e.g., California, Texas, or New York-like places), and living costs were low, relative to income.

Now, another theory is the trust fund. Which is an ugly and dicey subject. Nobody in their right mind would refuse the bounty of a room full of money, like Harry Potter's parents left him. These people can become the layperson's hero, because they have the time, risk-capacity, and privilege to do anything they like without risking food, housing, and health security.

Must be nice, but if the theory is correct, even in a more general form that does not include a trust fund and instead includes bottomless, limitless parental assistance, we still have a problem.

And when I say, "we" have a problem, I mean, those of use without this kind of help. For those without this kind of help, risks can't be taken, shifts in the rental market can become weaponized against our sources of security, and we can get pushed out of our lifetime home spaces.

So few people must have this kind of assistance, but I wonder what it does to rental markets; Are there enough people out there with financial assistance that rent markets could be artificially ballooned in relation to local income potentials?

Whether trust-funders, parental-supporters, or just a different kind of earner, the rental markets in my home area are so screwed up, even as a landlord, I cannot reconcile the disparities. How am I supposed to offer fair and reasonable rents when my personal income is no longer big enough to even rent my own house?

There's an interesting thought: A landlord who leases a property that the landlord can no longer afford to rent. I am that landlord. And it boggles my mind. The housing system appears to be in a state of volatility that isn't sustainable.

"Sustainable" is an interesting word to use in this context. I'm talking about a market where the median income can afford the median house. I'm talking about the median job paying a median income to buy the median house. When we're at the point where rent is higher than jobs are paying, we're talking about a market that is no longer in harmony.

Cats and the End of my Family Lineage

I recently decided that I will not be having kids. That decision might change, but right now, I am solidly convinced that I definitely do not want kids. This decision comes with an interesting consequence: It is the end of my family line. 

When biologists talk about extinction, they're not talking about an individual organism or families. The individual and the family of that organism aren't all that important in the grand scheme of the species. When something goes extinct, it has to be an entire branch of the tree of life.

I think the biologists are wrong. With every branch of their phylogenetic tree (aka. the tree of life), there are tiny capillaries that further refine and blur what that species is. My living family members are one of these imaginary capillaries coming off the human branch of this tree.

My decision to not have kids comes with an interesting consequence. The decision ends my family line, entirely.

None of the kids in my generation are procreating. We have just stopped. I am the one, only, and last male on both my mom and dad's side of the family who might procreate. There are no males on my dad's side in my generation and my one male cousin on the other side isn't interested, either.

I have one cousin who had a kid, but befell harsh judgment for having a kid at the age of 14. Hindsight, was this such a bad decision? She's the only person in the family in my generation to have a kid. Biologically speaking, she's the only successful one in the entire family. The rest of us are terminal points on the tree.

And what a bummer this is. We are all educated, upstanding citizens. And we are going extinct.

The choice of extinction for the family line is an interesting one. My master's degree taught me to plan more tightly, to not take on more than I can handle, and to foresee the future in a more accurate and complete way. And that power of foresight is what has led me directly to the choice to not procreate.

When I adopted my first cat about eight years ago, I was driven to do so by the norms of society and the need to have a pet. I even got a second one to keep him company, which doubled my feelings of hatred for the idea of reproduction. What this little cat, who has turned into a wonderful, but unwelcome friend, has taught me is that I will make a terrible father.

Yeah, a terrible father. Not only do I have two of the best cats I've ever met -- they're smart, energetic, personable, and aren't total assholes. Yet I can't stand them. The chain of having to take care of them, the damage they do to my living space, and the inability to bring anything into my house without it getting fucked up is exactly what has shown me that I shouldn't have kids.

I can't handle the constant maintenance cats bring to my life. Cat hair on everything, nothing remains untouched, and bodily messes are unending. It's not that I don't love puke, shit, and piss. And it's not that I don't love cat hair on everything, having everything knocked on the floor, and being totally excluded from having anything nice. It's really just that I'm not cut out for the commitment. The thought of having to take care of these things for another 10 years makes my skin crawl.

My cats didn't cause my decision, per se. Women were the primary cause. But the cats showed me that I'm not interested in the constant maintenance involved in keeping dependent beings alive. They're more like canaries in the coal mine -- indicators of trouble to come. I can't stand the thought of another ten years of piss, shit, puke, and fur-impregnated-everything, so the thought of the lifetime commitment of children becomes deeply repugnant.

Something went wrong in my family. An entire generation has chosen to not reproduce, which has led to the extinction of our capillary of the family tree. My decision to not have kids comes with an especially odd consequence. The Y-chromosome remains unchanged across generations and is passed from father to father -- I am the last Y-chromosome-carrying individual on both sides of the family -- and I have chosen to not even try to pass it along. Basically an organism in itself, this Y-lineage is now gone.

And it's because of cats. Well, and women. But cats. Cats have taught me that I'm so disinterested in keeping things that require so much maintenance and care that I am willing to just live out my days and not bother with the bullshit of reproduction. How strange. And liberating. I guess I just don't find this consciousness experiment compelling enough to bother helping it to continue. It just isn't worth it.