The Birth of a Blog

I have never liked being told what to do.

I got along all right in school because, oddly enough, I liked school. But once I hit the working world my authority complex came out in all its glory. Perhaps the problem is simply that I'm too stubborn, and impatient: I know what I want, and it doesn't involve getting up at 7am, wearing 'business casual', and showing up at someone else's company to file papers all day.

Some people don't seem to mind this employment model. They're okay with going to the office every day and letting someone else tell them to write this report or crunch those numbers. Most of my friends don't fall into that group. Most of my friends' career objectives include things like 'owning my own company' and 'being in charge'.

One of these friends and I have been discussing, lately, how frustrating it is to give so much of our time and energy to Those Places (the companies that employ us) when we have SO many other things we'd rather be doing in pursuit of our own objectives. The Job satisfies only one objective: don't become homeless/go bankrupt/starve to death.

Unfortunately, that's a pretty important objective to keep pursuing. Forturnately, The Job is only one way of fulfilling that particular need. There are many other possible ways of staying financially solvent. Some that I've thought of include:

participating in psychological or medical studies
handing out fliers on the street
winning contests/going on game shows or reality TV
recycling bottles and cans for the deposits
busking for tips (as a musician)
becoming an egg or sperm donor
getting a grant
getting a 'sugar daddy'

Most of those aren't terribly appealing, though I wouldn't mind busking if I could actually make some money doing it. (When was the last time you threw anything better than a penny or an old newspaper into an open guitar case on the street?)

Then it hit me: this particular friend and I both have no end of things to say about any number of subjects. Why don't we start a blog? There are, in fact, professional bloggers out there - why can't we join them? And thus Better Off Crazy was born.

So, welcome to our experiment. If nothing else, now we'll have a forum in which to shout our opinions to the world - and hopefully get some opinions thrown back at us. I'm looking forward to it.