Everything, and everyone has a price; however, most bills are overdue. I have put myself in every situation necessary to gain opportunities. To those opportunities, I throw in a bid. To those bids, I place an unmeasured but respectable effort. This bill is still due. The ladder will be climbed. The plateau will be reached: Gaining and assigning costs. Sadly, where I cannot help but stumble, and never collect, I tread. As I walk, the soppy mud pulls down at my heals. There is no exit aside from the direction I came.

This is Pursuit.

I can name heroes, such as Alvin C York, who gave up the pen and took up a rifle, leading 100’s of men through respect and fear. I read that he was a teacher that volunteered for the first World War and captured over 130 men single handed. I can work canned equations that will tell me the declining chances as the hours near closing in my office that my phone will ring. I can cite tax regulation in context to a very defined, specialized and rarely referenced subject matter. I can draw on these lessons the way a craftsman draws his tool belt; I cannot explain hours spent or define with any reason one subject matter.

This is Woman.

Far more time is wasted than spent, yet somewhere, somehow, collected. I’ve spent on the perfect screens to distract myself from this fact alone. Most men do not chase a dream they have not experienced; ignorance is bliss. Within men that try, dressing as casual as one can afford and resting their beaten hands on electronic controllers, one may find a survivor. This man will climb blindly, because he has only ever know spending. He will spend blood, sweat, tears and time to never be vulnerable. The act of collecting becomes nothing more than the means to spending, and he will never let be.

This is Myself.

I have turned off the news. I have separated ways with those that need to surpass trivial, arbitrary hurdles. I will spend down on screens no longer. I have stopped broadcasting the news. I can feel myself exiting society. Like many men before me, I have begun to pack my bags for checkout. There is no blame. There is no hate. There is no expectation. Dreams. Goals. Responsibilities. A man cannot live on food and shelter alone. He cannot pick up discarded pieces of society that are not worth their weight. This man cannot die for anyone that would not live for him.

This is My Decree.

Signed,

Without Notoriety