LUDIC LOG

I can't tell you how many letters I get. Just a bunch of buncombe and kerdoodle from a gaggle of mopey-pusses gone bitter before their time. What they need is perspective, and that's my business. Ever since I quit the optometrist trade, I've still been helping people to see -- sometimes what's right in front of their face.

Why, who gives a good gosh darn about your "low-paying, degrading job"? Mr. Albert Einstein worked as an entry-level patent clerk until he came up with the theory of relativity. Your so-called "lack of focus and direction"? If there's one thing an ex-optometrist knows, it's that lack of focus can be corrected. Your alleged "inability to function in an adult social environment"? Well, don't they always say to look at life through the eyes of a child? Let me tell you something, my friend: everything will look as bright and cheery as a load of laundry on a fresh spring morning, once you learn the secret of perspective: count... your... blessings! Take this journey with me, won't you?

First of all, you need to always remember: you are your future! Sure, you may think you have a "crappy job" with "no hope of advancement" and you're regularly degraded and belittled by people who can, without even thinking about it, buy you and everything you own out of pocket change. But remember this: if you work hard and keep your eye out for every possible opportunity -- always with your mind on the future -- then maybe someday you'll be, for however brief a period of time and however miniscule a way, the one in charge! Yes, you may have a brief window of time in which you'll get to tell other people what to do! The more miserable you make them during that time, the more embittered and hateful they'll become, and the more spitefully they'll inflict punishment on their own menial staff of underlings when the time comes. Look at it as starting your own little Christmas Club of misery and grief that will pay off huge dividends of anger, resentment and class hostility when it matures. This will assure that in some small way, you will live on even after you're gone!

Next, I want to tell you about a word. It's a little word, easy to say and easy to spell, with only four simple letters, but it contains all you'll ever need to know about life. That word, of course, is porn. In today's world, there are over 18 billion pornographic websites on the internet -- and that's not even mentioning the innumerable stroke books, skin magazines, sex hotlines and dirty movies that are available with a minimum of effort. Not even the world's most dedicated masturbators can have visited more than 6 or 7 million of these porn sites in their lifetimes! The less demanding your job, home, family and social life, the more time you've got to shore up that number. Think of everything that awaits you: horsefuckers, mulehumpers, dogblowers, hermaphroditic midgets, 600-pound transvestites, old men who blow young boys, young boys who blow old men, and enough fake naked pictures of the First Lady to wallpaper the Taj Mahal. And brother, if you think you have to wait until you get home from work to masturbate to this pornucopia, then all I can say is that you're not taking advantage of your free time at work, your communal bathroom, or the adjustable height feature on the prefab desk unit of your cubicle. And that's the real tragedy here.

I want you to think about something for a moment: there are no such things as problems. What you call a problem, someone with perspective calls an opportunity in disguise! Let's say that your work schedule is causing you to miss your favorite daytime drama. That seems like a problem, doesn't it? That's because you lack perspective! My 20/20 vision sees it as an opportunity! By putting in a few late hours at work, you will have the opportunity to go through the confidential employee personnel files in the Human Resources office, where you will discover a veritable gold mine of scandalous material about your co-workers -- and your superiors! And, like all good gold mines, this one will allow you to become rich beyond your wildest dreams! Just drop a few hints to your boss or supervisor about his drinking problem, his decade-long affair with the secretary, or that unfortunate incident with the police officer and the orang-utan. Tell him that you are tough but fair, like a pimp lovingly beating his whores, and that you're willing to forget all about what you read for the low, low price of a 27" TV and a few uninterrupted hours each work day. Either he'll give in, so you get what you want, or he'll fire you, in which case you still get what you want! For what is unemployment but a chance to catch up on your soaps -- or, to put it another way, an opportunity disguised as a problem?

Finally, count your blessings every day! After all, in this world, you may be poor or sick or lonely, but you've got some things that money just can't buy: perspective, persistence, and the invaluable fac that you're not some mincy homo or shiftless good-for-nothing wop or cheap snivelling Hebe.

I'm former optometrist Dr. Steven Vincent, and this has been...A Different Perspective.