Drew Yates

Are you a totally sweet midwestern mommy babe bedeckelized in full Christmas sequin snowman regalia complete with themed rhinestone pin? Does the evening news not quite fill the gapping void between your stale administrative job and some public institution of higher secondary school? Do you embrace the electric guitar as an instrument of greater awareness most amenable to mass dissemination over cheap modern electronics?

[Resident], do you accept Jesus as your personal God, Christ, and savior?

Then as my authority as an affirmed cardiac residential guarantor of Jesus Christ himself, I hereby imply that you extend my implication to your adult children and stuff their perky college bodies into your road salt encrusted SUV and shuttle them to our super cool Jesus Christmas multimedia technotronic, magnavonic super-mega BLOW OUT for JESUS CHRIST ROCK STAR EXTREME 110% WITH REAL FAKE SNOW AND ELECTRIC GUITARS AND BIG FLAT SCREEN MULTIMEDIA DISPLAYS AND SOME DUDE WHO ONCE LOVED JESUS SO MUCH THAT HIS DOCTOR PRESCRIBED HIM LAXATIVES AND SOME OTHER DUDE WHO WORE A HOODIE TO WORK ON A TUESDAY WHO MAY KNOW UPWARDS OF TEN HOTKEYS IN ADOBE PHOTOSHOP AND ENJOYS A ROBUST 4-COLOR PRINTING BUDGET!!!

I promise, you’ll feel almost as cool as your children and their cute ideas about Santa Claus and core curriculum European history, but twice as spiritual! Keep the dream alive and assuage yourself via Barnes and Noble’s most recent best seller devotional title.

Disclaimer: While I may or may not have been the first sibling to enthusiastically sing along during a rock rendition of Silent Night at Non-denominational Super Church, my Christmas at home with the family was actually relaxing and enjoyable. My mother, Jane, even gets special BLOG BONUS POINTS for exclaiming that “your dad isn’t really your dad” as a counter to my case that unwanted children should be aborted and that my cousin should be imprisoned for “irresponsible life” because she was knocked up and is an unfit parent. (note: it’s not reasonable to present a contrary result to refute a decision made by expected value, and my dad is probably my dad. Go Mom!)

I am Director of Ventures ByIQ of ByIQ. This is my institution from which I plan to achieve my larger goals. My job here at Ventures ByIQ is to invest, build start ups, and find talent… and by “job,” I mean that I AM Ventures ByIQ. I work with my mentor Paul Charlton who is a genius and is ByIQ.

Businesses that I have already (tentatively) launched from my Ventures ByIQ platform include a relaunch of Fizbang as a contracting services to build social network applications and XYGene, consumer genetic testing. (note, XYGene site is still under construction)

• Isolation is living death.
• People are actors within their own private performances.
• You are a person. You are mostly acting.
• Other modes of thought exist beyond the conscious and rational.
• Conscious thought is formulaic. Formulas are linear.
• Classes exist in America.
• We consume much more information than we think.
• Most information we consume is what we already recognize.
• People not in our social class are almost invisible.
• Words and phrases tend to mean a vague emotional impression much more than anything definable.
• We have much less control over the information we consume than we think.
• We become the information we consume. It’s our culture and our language, and these make our thoughts.
• Conversation is “social touching.” That information has been communicated and understood is largely irrelevant.
• “Middle Class” is a pejorative.
• Voids are scary.
• There is little correlation between the mental energy of an action and its importance.
• Media convinces us that we have relationships with people that do not exist.
• People feel nearly socially saturated, yet lonely. This is like suffering from malnutrition in a candy store.
• School teaches us to run. Yet, life isn’t a marathon, it’s wandering in wilderness.
• Why run a race if you can award yourself the prize?
• Have courage: you’ll be forgotten. Do you what you want. Maybe then you’ll be an exception.
• Remember: entire wars have been forgotten. Who, then, can remember who won, who lost, who died, and why?
• Read history.
• “Nice” means “no obvious flaws.”
• Apparently, difference between what’s valuable and what’s expensive is difficult to discern, if possible at all. I wish I owned a PF Chang’s franchise.

I got pissed this weekend because I was supposed to be like: super hard work! But instead, I was like: depressing internet procrastination

In conclusion, I’m on a new Internet and email diet this week. So far, I am negative one days free of media addiction.

EDIT: You know, I would actually be impressed with religious groups if they sought to moderate media in a rational way. Hours of daytime television everyday is far more damaging to a healthy life and mind than 20 minutes of pornography twice a week. I would prefer my children to watch an R Rated movie like Pulp Fiction than a couple hours of most major news channels. Better aggressive and intellectually voracious kid than a weak, boring nothing kid.

Kafka’s Metamorphsis

A Stanford student studying biology recommended this to me at the cafe in Palo Alto where I like to read.

The point of this essay is that Gregor is fundamentally unchanged despite transforming from a “model employee” to a cockroach. In fact, Gregor is more of a parasite to his family as a working man than a bed-ridden cockroach. Only until Gregor finally dies is his family released from his soul-sucking influence.

The irony is that this is so counter to our education (unless you were raised an aristocrat), yet so intuitive psychologically. There is something intrinsically disgusting about pandering to the petty authority of others that demands disrespect.

I don’t know how one could appreciate an essay like this and then return to work or school the same. Success by “hard work and honesty” has always been a stupid myth. If this myth was understood literally (myths never work this way), it would be less dishonest, though incomplete. But what this myth actually means is “shut up and do what you’re told —or else,” which is an open invitation to be a disgusting cockroach for disgusting cockroaches.

I would like to take a moment to interrupt the regular steam of topics here and address a very serious issue in my office at a real startup right now: office supplies.

Yes, Office Supply Osmosis is that inexorable force by which various office supplies drift from well-organized bastions of productivity (my office) to beige prisons of despair (your office).

I note this because, at this moment, there are no scissors in my scissors drawer. I have attached photographic evidence of my scissors drawer by which you may draw your own scissor stock conclusions.

Yes, a mere ignorant grind entirely unversed in the Occupational Sciences may think to look for the scissors or to simply purchase a new pair.

(this brief intermission included to admit a hearty, arrogant guffaw on behalf of the otherwise sophisticated)

No. The problem is insufficient Office Supply Saturation.

Office supplies tend to dissipate through an office building by area, not by use. If the average area per office supply instance is less than the area of your office, you are fighting a losing battle against science. And I have bad news for you: only God can trump science, and I haven’t been to any of your religious festivals lately.

So you see, simply replacing the scissors would not appreciably improve the Office Supply Saturation of your occupational habitat. Obviously, the only rational solution must be… to Scissor Saturate.

(shopping is like osmosis for which you have to pay)

(seeding the office to achieve satisfactory scissor saturation)

Further observation throughout the following weeks is suggested to better ascertain the success of this Scissor Saturation intervention, but I’m confident that this office will cease to suffer the ravages of Office Supply Osmosis thanks entirely to my hard-charging, promotable leadership and execution abilities.

(Andrew Yates is a practicing Doctor of Occupational Science at Ventures ByIQ where he is currently accepting new clients for his Office Supply Saturation consulting practice.)

(pictures coming soon!)