Fiscal Answers

In these times of financial uncertainty, I find myself working harder and longer just to pay most of the bills. Surely it will let up soon, right? Surely there will be some release?

I can't trust the predictions and "reportage" of the media -- they clearly don't have a clue what they're talking about.

And I certainly don't trust anything the government might tell us -- they want us malleable, controllable. If telling us everything is okay when it's not will make us play into their plans, that's what they'll do. Or if telling us everything sucks when everything is, indeed, fine will get us to behave the way that serves them best, they'll tell us everything sucks.

But if everyone has an agenda, everyone wants to manipulate me to serve their own end, where can I turn for answers? Where can I turn for the Truth?

Luckily, there is an ancient master of Mun-Ki Do. Her name is Bong Pang-duk, and her mission is the enlightenment of primate-kind!

Did I mention that she's a spider monkey?

Bong is also a master of her own interpretation of the I Ching. And if an earnest supplicant is willing to travel to her remote home (and perhaps bring and extra lulo or dragon fruit), then she is willing to share her insight.

I didn't have any lulos or dragon fruits, but I scored a small bag of cashews and a bottle of V8 Splash and began my pilgrimage.

Now, luckily for me, I didn't have to travel all the way across the border. Bong Pang-duk lives in an abandoned house that sits on a dried-up lakebed in Northwest Austin. So the drive was only 20 minutes.

For answers to the future of society, I really got off easy!

So I climbed down into the lake bed and hiked to where the abandoned house sits, I humbly placed the cashews and V8 Splash on the front porch, and then meditated quietly for the next 90 minutes.

Actually, I meditated for about 15 minutes, then I drifted off and had a nice little nap.

I was awakened by the slam of the screen door.

There, darting around the porch, the roof, the lake bed floor, the water slide attached to the house, the roof again and then back onto the porch, was the glorious Bong Pang-duk!!!

Respectfully -- and very, very quietly -- I asked her what was in store for our country financially.

Bong tossed a pawful of ancient coins into the air, watched them fall, noted how they landed, and then began to translate in a series of complex postures and stances:

DIVERGENCE
Avoid conflicts arising from uncoordinated actions. Seek reconciliation of differing opinions; convert conflict into creative tension.

NEEDING
Bide your time. Attend to the necessities.

There may be no winning this one; show good grace.
Reevaluate your point of view. Be flexible.
Present your side reasonably; expect good results.
Don't needlessly perpetuate an argument.

After her dance was done, Bong popped the top off the V8 Splash and took a drink.

I blinked.

"What the hell was that?! Are things gonna get better or not? I can't fill my gas tank with 'Divergence', can I? What, am I gonna make some 'Needing' soup?"

In my unthinking annoyance I stood, and that was a mistake. Mun-Ki Do is a brutal and efficient art, and Bong is a brutal and efficient master.

When Bong was done handing my ass to me (not literally, thankfully) I limped back to my car and drove home.

But since the knowledge came at such a humiliating and high price, I decided to reconsider Bong's answer to my question...

...and I got nothin'. It's gibberish to me.

Sorry.

Maybe I shouldn't ask questions about humanity's future of a monkey living in a house in the middle of a dried-up lake.