You know, the best thing that ever happened to me was getting trapped over here in Hellsborough. I have a degree and a PhD, I also had a ton of debt when I was a student, and lived like an animal. I ate rubbish food. I went out with friends, but I couldn't afford to, I spent plenty of money on my passions (drink, and other extracurricular activities), but it made me broke.

Debt is crippling, let me tell you. And all for what? I did learn to talk to folks, that's for sure, that's what anthropology is all about. As for folklore, what was I thinking? When I think back now about what I was doing, I was just following my own selfish interests.

Don't get me wrong, without the knowledge of those two subjects, I don't think I'd have ever found my way here, so maybe the selfishness, stupidity and sacrifice was ultimately worth it.

Now I understand the human condition and myself so much better than I ever did, or would have ever done back on the off-world. I would have just been accumulating my own selfish knowledge about subjects that no-one really cares about.

Here, in Hellsborough, where capitalism rules supreme, I have had to learn to stand on my own two feet. There are no hand-outs here -- well there are, you'll not starve, you're too important to The Nascenti for them to allow you to starve, and you'd make too much of a mess for them to clean up. But the way to really live, is to make more ¢hits, that is the measure of success by anyone's yardstick in this world.

It is a constant amazement to me that your average jellyhead is actually content to work for the nascenti and receive their daily bread. They're fine, they live their lives, they are able to have families, they get to go to the pub every now and then, maybe eat out once or twice a year, get to buy a pork roll for lunch a couple of days a week, rather than always relying on the DPDC issued bio-feed. But none of them dare to stick their heads above the parapet much -- but the truth be told, they don't need to stick their heads above the parapet, there is plenty of ways to earn ¢hits and live a much better life.

Most of them though, just don't bother to even understand the problem, never mind learn the fundamentals of making their lives better.

I suppose you could easily have levelled the same criticism against me back when I was in the off-world.

I was so wrapped up in my own existence, and full of the luxury of trying to learn about what I wanted to selfishly learn about, eg. anthropology and folklore -- I ignored the real needs that I had -- instead of spending my time pursuing things that would take me off the bread line, I just survived, I ignored the real and present danger -- that of being one pay cheque away from bankruptcy, not that I got a pay cheque back then, I just had an allowance and dead end side jobs working for the man, or nonsense jobs in academia.

I thank Dunlockslyn that I managed to find those semagrams and that I then made The Hinge so unstable, that I can no longer go back to the off-world. It has made me who I am now, and I'm not going to apologise for that.

So what did I do? How did find these ways to earn ¢hits and live myself a better life?

I'll save that for another day, but believe me, I will share all -- I've no reason not to.