~ I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path,
and only I will remain. ~

This quote is from the character Paul Atreides in Herbert’s classic science fiction novel Dune. I have found recently that I am repeating this quote to myself very often as I face the day to day struggle of surviving real life in today’s economic climate.

Who needs a Reality TV show about survival when just getting by without a job or healthcare coverage is the game millions of people in the United States play every day. Sadly few win and I think the game is rigged myself.

Every day lately I’ve been eye to eye with Depression. I can see the blood in the threads of veins webbing across the dirty yellow of its eyeball. The pupil so deep a mat black that nothing gets reflected back. If black holes existed, that’s where they’d be, in the midnight new moon & starless black of Depression’s eyeballs.

Depression has a nasty way of getting in the way of great intentions. I could have accomplished so much if I did not have to deal with this daemon at my back, whispering in my ears, ‘You’re not going to make it.’ Healthcare would fix that problem, but wait, I don’t have healthcare insurance.

So I’m doomed as much as those on Dune, my worm sound is broken teeth and knowing the look in Depression’s eyes.

My SciFi (Sorry Dr Asimov, I know you hate that term for it) being my high I find that images taken from its libraries haunt my every living waking sleeping moment. Phrases pop in from outer space hourly, “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try.” among so many others, nothing is sacred.

Then there’s that sound from “Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee” that happened when anything went wrong, like dying. I hear it mixed in with the constant ringing in my ears, that sound like a warning, something is about to go bad.

Here we are with a new year to deal with, unemployment for me ends this month, 99 weeks and still cannot find a job. Now I face no income at all, so what am I suppose to do?

It is ironic that the truth and the injustice, unfairness of the our government’s policies go unnoticed, unseen and denied by those in Washington, people who relied on our votes, my vote, to get there. How can it be fair that the upper 2% of Americans that make over 100K a year can get tax cuts, when those of us on unemployment have to pay taxes on the little amount that we get, and can barely survive on. Now I face the IRS because frankly I cannot pay taxes on the unemployment I got last year. I did not have taxes taken out because I needed every cent.

Ok IRS come and get me, I have no property except an ’89 Geo and my computers, which I rely on to look for work. Come put me in jail for non-payment of taxes, at least then I would have shelter, food and a place to sleep. This will be the first year I cannot pay taxes or have an income of any kind to count on.

Looking for work, what a joke, send out resumes, no one calls. What good will my car and computers be when I have no money to power them. Thanks all you people in Washington with your big cars and pockets full of money, while you feed richly others starve for you, while you sleep in warm safe beds, we shiver in the cold reality of no home to call our own.

Happy New Year United States Senate and the House. I bet you had a great holiday. Mine was coated in the unknown of how I will survive this next year. Thank you Senator Bernie Sanders for your attempt to free us from the upper class, thank you for 8 hours on the Senate floor speaking the truth, thank you for trying.

The USA is killing it’s middle class, we will not die with a bang, it will be a whimper as the greatest nation in the world becomes those that Have and those that Have Nothing, and the American Dream is just another lie.

Bring back the jobs that were outsourced overseas. Upper 2% with tax breaks, just don’t take them. Gave back to the country that made you wealthy.