Happy New Year!

This is day one of what I hope will be a 365 day journey of consistency.  In the past I have started each new year with a few resolutions, most of which, o.k. pretty much all of which flame out sometime around the Super Bowl.  One resolution I make practically every year is to write more.  I love writing and consider myself a writer, but writing itself often falls down the list of priorities in my daily life. I want that to change in 2015. Therefore, I am making it my goal, not resolution, to put something in this space everyday. It might be rubbish, actually there is a fairly decent chance of that, or it might be gold. Either way words will be written because as you can see by the new title of this blog I believe that writers write. Right?

The thing that is on my mind as we begin this new year is greed.  I wrestle with greed the way a boxer might approach a formidable opponent. I respect its motivation and tenacity, but I still want it annihilated.
I read a lot of social media, probably too much, and I see a lot of anger toward things such as white privilege, systematic oppression, and even capitalism.  Don't kid yourself, white privilege, systematic oppression, those things do exist and whether or not you believe you have contributed to it in any way, it continues to be a problem with deep, deep roots in our culture. This country is still sharply divided along racial lines. As a white man with an African-American wife and two bi-racial children, I wish terribly this was not the case, but the evidence is too strong to believe that it is not true.

We can talk about racism another day. Today I want to focus on capitalism. There seems to be a belief that the system is at fault for the way things are. Capitalism created the 1%. Capitalism denies the opportunity for a man to provide for his family. Capitalism oppresses the poor. I for one don't blame the system, I blame greed.  I am not an economist, I know that there are others out there far more educated than I am on the subject but I look at this way; the ones who know best how to take advantage of the system tend to be the greediest among us. For them, enough is never enough, it is always about more.  More production, more money, more profit. More is not evil, it can be a good thing when handled properly, but there is a lack of morality, of ethics among those who are always striving for more. They tend to be of the mind-set that as long as there is more for me, then screw everyone else.  That mentality, that greed, not capitalism, is what has created this prosperity gap that continues to widen every day.

I believe it was Spider-man's Uncle Ben who said; "with great power comes great responsibility." This attitude has been lost on a generation of the business class who would rather believe what another movie character said back it the 1980's, when Gordon Gecko told all of us that; "greed is good."
I believe in people getting ahead, I love the fact that a man can conceivably start with nothing but a dream and end up on top of the world. I don't think there should be a limit on a persons success, but I think that each of us has a moral obligation to be good stewards of what we acquire. That means playing the game fairly, abiding by the rules. That means giving back, being generous, lending a helping hand.  I don't think this only applies to money. I believe that we all have talents and resources that go beyond the monetary and that if we shared these things with others that we all would benefit. That is my hope for 2015, that the concept of greed become outdated and obsolete. I know the chances are slim, but you have to start somewhere. Kind of like this blog. I will write everyday, try to be less about me everyday, and 365 days from now, hopefully we will all be living in a better world.