Leverage Void

We complain. We bitch. We moan. We sigh wearily. We throw Our hands in the air, exclaim "ay bendito" in any one of its 748 variations and We continue to complain, bitch, moan and sigh.

How many of Us are actually doing something--anything, any goddamn thing--to make Our situation better?

I'd say about 15% of Us, on a good day. And We don't have many good days.

Let Me define: Four million residents on this Island of which some 800,000 are children. Some 420,000 adults work in or for the government, so We can say maybe 5% of those are of any use. Over 260,000 are college students; scratch them. (Yeah, I know some of them have to be doing something useful, but I don't see it and neither do you.)

That leaves about 2.6 million people here and if 20% of them are doing something to change Our Increasingly Pathetic Island, We'd all be surprised. So My estimate of 15%, as noted above, holds up very well.

Now it's absolutely true that the power of the individual to effect change is virtually limitless. But it requires the process of leveraging, the addition and multiplication of efforts to achieve greater results.

In an astounding discovery, certain to derail the scientific progress of math and physics for decades to come, the universal principle of leverage is no longer "universal." For in Puerto Rico We have created the "leveraging void."

If leveraging is the doughnut, We are the hole, the one place a doughnut don't work. (I live to write lines like that.) Where leveraging continues to work even in the deepest bowels of the deepest void of intelligence, common sense and decency known to the media (currently known as "the Oval Office"), in Puerto Rico the intricate meshing of the intangible gears that reinforce and drive actions to occasionally spectacular outcomes simply...doesn't...work.

It's like discovering that wheels roll everywhere, except in Puerto Rico.

Why is this so? How can a universal law that Voyager might learn applies in some other 0.000000000000000000000000000001% of the Universe (more space than you'll ever see), how can it NOT be a Truth on My Island?

Obviously: We make it fail. Like perverse wheel makers who turn out square wheels sold as round, We pretend to leverage efforts, but in fact, We sabotage them to prove that things here are different.

We do it because We can't stand success. We can't stand the responsibility that goes with making Our own destiny. We hate the idea that someone can achieve a result that makes Our "barely above comatose" walk through Life look like what it is: a shabby, pitiful state of affairs. We pretend to help in order to assuage a guilty conscience, product of overreligiousity (as opposed to spirituality), and fail to develop a true conscience. We live in festering jealousy, a permanent boil easily pricked for effluvia. And rather than face these facts, We retreat, into a waking coma, indifference, a bottle, a TV set, drugs, rage or Florida.

Leverage doesn't work where efforts cannot be combined, where partnerships are false, where alliances are facetious, where honesty is a vice, integrity is synonymous with well-managed hypocrisy and your victory is never--never--Mine.

And yet, I believe We can change. Voids can be undone. Even 1% of anything can nullify a void...


The Jenius Has Spoken.