The purpose of blocks stacked as a pyramid is to support the topblock, the n=1 up there.  Each subsequent layer is made of n=depth squared blocks and you are near the center of the 910th layer, you areburied under or surrounded by more than 250 million blocks.  Looking about you can see only parts of a dozen or so other blocks around, above and below.  Only the block at the top has a very good notion of what the structure is all about.   Extract yourself from the pyramid and walk around it.  See it fromall sides.  Fly over it.  Enjoy the view.  Don't divert your attemptto gain perspective by trying to count the blocks.  Don't spendenergy trying to climb to the top.  A monumental waste of time.   The pyramid poorly serves most of its blocks.  It should bedismantled and the summation of n squared layers of blocks encouraged toseek associations that are more to their own benefit and liking.  Theywere coerced into believing the pyramid is best for them.  They fearfor their existence if they are not so formed.   It is unfortunate that most blocks foolishly believe a pyramid tobe the only reliable structure.  Freedom scares them.  When one doescomplain it is told to look below at a layer that bears more than itdoes; to be grateful for its position and jealous only of its peers.They are not permitted to look up and relate what they see.Occasionally one is taken up and this is sufficient to satisfy theremainder.  There is never much room near the top.   Victor harbors hope.  He knows there's little probability he'll everbe employed again as an engineer.  Hell, there's only a 0.4 probabilityof minimum wage day labor on and given day.  If he "gets out" it meansexhausting his body and time and getting barely enough to survive andnot enough to rent a room.  What's worse is the surrender of dignityand autonomy required by the job shop and the temporary employer.  Themaintenence of self esteem is sufficient reason to depend on begging. Atleast panhandlers and welfare recipients can delude themselves intobelieving they are defrauding the system and therefore superior to theirbenefactors.  But that not altogether efficient since publication ofsuch notions tend to interfere with the ability to get handouts.   In any case, a moderate amount of self respect is required to allowVictor to create an independent means of survival.  That is what hehopes for.  The only survival society provides for him at present isbased on begging, scarce and growing scarcer social services and slavelabor.  The "post modern" internationalism means less for most and morefor the few.  He is superfluous in America since the jobs have gone tocheap labor countries overseas.  (Though where, ultimately the productswill be sold when the plastic gets too heavy to pass around, he thinksis a mystery.)  So he's on his own and must self generate the confidencenecessary to create the means to acquire the necessities of survival.   What is that means to be?  Victor doesn't have high probabilityoptions.  He believes he must simultaneously work at a number ofpossibilities.  As an engineer he designed and programmed communicationsdevices among other computer related activities.  In his spare time hecreated PC applications, especially for his children.  He did jobrelated technical writing and played with prose and poetry at home.  Inthe past twelve months he's taught himself HTML and some JavaScriptwhile exploring the web and developing several (free) homepages, usingpublic access machines, mostly in libraries.   The inventory of his resources includes an aging 486 powered byphotopanels.  These he keeps at a campsite fifty miles from Tucson andten miles from pavement.  While in his retreat he writes prose, poetryand windows applications.  Of course there is no phone or internetaccess.  That's what he goes to Tucson to get.  Not to mention moneyfor food.  You can only eat so many jackrabbits before you begin tomiss the peanut butter and baloney sandwhiches from the free kitchen.A strange sort of cabin fever but it helps him to remember his commitmentto humanity.   The most likely payoffs he can see, and they're not very likely,are attached to his writing and programming.  He offers both for freeon the net, publishing on his own pages.  He asks for handouts tosupport continued activity.  This Cyber-Panhandling scheme hasn't payedmuch yet but he's only been at it a month or so.   If he gets kicked out of the library it will increase hisdifficulties.  The problems of the homeless are painful to themselvesand apparantly to the middle class as well.  Victor has become awaremost people don't care to see him.  Some tell themselves they aretrying to help as they scheme to get rid of him.				  (c)Copyright 1998. A.G. Kaiser