Wade’s Journal – 5/25/13

Having sold my property in Mexico, I’m flush with cash for the first time ever in my life, with many more possibilities at hand.

What shall I do with the rest of my life?

As soon as the banks processed my money (it took more than two weeks), I paid off all my credit cards and bought the latest 60-inch Panasonic plasma TV, which I love. Tonight a few friends are coming over to celebrate by watching a movie. That should be fun.

And I bought a $70 View Box ticket behind home plate for today’s Giants game. The sun is shining and the Giants are competing fiercely for first place. I plan to watch the game without listening to the radio or playing with any of my electronic devices. Just relax and enjoy.

Tomorrow a friend and I are going to share a Creole breakfast at Brenda’s and then go to Marin County to explore Mt. Tam and soak up the negative ions at Cascade Falls, my favorite sanctuary.

Last night I pinned down plans to go to the Vancouver Folk Festival with Brandon and his family, take the ferry along the coast of British Columbia to Alaska by myself, and then hang out in Seattle with Brandon for several days while Kristen and the boys are on the road.

Then I’ll return to San Francisco for the summer to make money driving taxi while listening to baseball on the radio (not a bad combination) and make plans for getting away from all the flu bugs this winter. Top priority is finally making it to Brazil for a participatory Carnival in northern Brazil (rather than the passive spectacle in Rio). I also want to return to the north coast of the Dominican Republic. And a fellow cab driver recently told me about some Greek Islands in the Adriatic that sound marvelous.

So much more travel is definitely on my list.

As for my community work, my current plan is to avoid initiating any new projects. Rather, I’ll just be available to participate in any compelling new initiatives undertaken by others, if and when they emerge.

I’ll be most interested in holistic projects that integrate the personal, the social, and the political, in contrast to fragmented projects with a narrow focus which is the norm. So far I’ve discovered no such effort. But there are some rumblings afoot. We shall see.

It may be that the process of modernization has so much momentum behind it we’re unable to affect its course. But I’ll keep my eyes and ears open just in case.

How much writing I do remains to be seen. I enjoy spending an hour or so most days following Wall Street News and posting “Big Bank News” highlights to Reform-Wall-Street.org.

I just finished a great new book, The Banker’s New Clothes, and will write about it soon. But otherwise I’m not sure.

I remain convinced that fundamental Wall Street reform is critical, but whether and how effective grassroots pressure can be mobilized is unknown.

And now that I’ve finished "Transform America: A Declaration for Action," I may return to writing my autobiography.

The feedback on the declaration has been positive, but only a few people have commented. So I doubt that much will come of that effort.

But I have no regrets. I just wanted to sum up my thinking in a clear, concise way and share it with close to 100 individuals who know me. My hope was that doing so would help identify kindred spirits with whom I might collaborate. But as I expected, that has not happened. I figure that either the horse (modernization) is out of the barn and there is nothing we can do about it, or I’m ahead of my time. Either way, I’m a stranger in a strange land.

But some powerful forces are percolating. Consciousness is being expanded, rapidly. Some day soon it may all come together. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, as Kathy Kelly’s Iraqi friend said, “Don’t forget to love the universe.”