Integrity, bah humbug!

There's nothing like poverty to teach you how much of a luxury integrity truly is. Going back three or four decades I remember putting the kids to bed and sitting at my desk trying to figure out who to pay and who could wait. I would stick to my guns of what I thought was "me" in the work until it came to a point of groceries or integrity. Do I drive my dream truck when my kid needs braces? Good bye dream truck hello beater. I'd then give in and make what the market place gobbled up. I've had a bit of a career being a loose cannon. Sometimes market driven and sometimes God's middle finger. Maybe I'm coming around. Maybe I'm ready to lay the burden of the Protestant work ethic down. In University I took a course in Political Philosophy that would send me walking the streets of Toronto talking to myself. This was before ear buds and cell phones so people probably thought I was cuckoo. The course was taught by Sauly Patel a South African that was kicked out of Dodge for being a communist. He was the best lecturer bar none I have ever experienced. One of the books on the reading list was The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber. We read alot of German writers, economists, socialologists and philospohers. So I am off this weekend next to Ash and Barrel an invitional show with some really fine potters. I want to come home with some doe, rae, me as I have this gig at The Archie Bray in Montana that is really important to me. I will be with some of the best so I don't want to be the turd in the punchbowl but I want to come home with some cash to bank. I'll be showing both my dark side and my lighter side. I think for most of my career I have subsidized integrity.

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