Home Buying 1: Outrageous Assumptions

Over the last few months, I have been trying to become a homeowner in Los Angeles. Like every big venture, this one is also based on certain assumptions, some of which are outrageous and based on nothing but preposterous optimism.

The most outrageous of them all is the assumption that the world, this country, my house and I will live on and thrive for 30 years. This assumption sounds almost ridiculous when one considers my age (32), the age of the house (42), the age of this country, and the age of this world, coupled with the current state of world affairs. In my mind, this is the assumption that is most likely to fail. But do I care? Do I give a damn? No. I am more worried about 'exciting' things like 'Do I want a gray, plush carpet or a maple hardwood floor?' and 'Does the house conform to Vaastu principles?'.

Some other outrageous assumptions are 'I shall continue to grow richer, and will be able to recover from this huge debt', 'The value of my house will definitely increase', 'I shall be happier than before by being a homeowner', 'I will definitely get a better interest rate when I refinance my loan' and 'My family will look up to me and say, Hey, you know you did the right thing by blowing away three-quarters of a million dollars on a ungainly hunk of concrete, metal, glass and wood'.

In the home buying process, there are only two things that are guaranteed - 1. I shall live a debt-ridden life for the next 30 years, and 2. My lender will always be there to hound me during this entire time, no matter what happens to me, the house, or the world.

Yet, millions will buy homes this year, like the billions who already have, and the billions who will in the future. And every one of them will take these outrageous assumptions in their stride, and think they did a great job, made a very wise decision, and that they deserve praise and applause.
And worse still, they will get it. The people around them will look up to them as great achievers, will seek their advice and countenance, lap up every word they have to say, and repeat the same follies without a qualm.

If we ever get outsmarted by another species, most likely the ants, the main reason given out would be 'In justifying the rationality of buying million dollar homes, man achieved such gargantuan levels of stupidity that the brain began to lose its efficiency and capability of functioning correctly, and over a period of evolution, gradually lost all power and became a vestigial organ like the appendix. And we, the ants, jumped in at that point, and took over.

Life is an unnecessary waste of time!

I have never attended a company meeting where things were not awesome, people were not highly excited, the future was not bright and the achievements of the recent past were not awesome. Never has anybody said in a company meeting that we suck, we did not achieve anything, the future looks bleak, and we are close to getting sold or filing bankruptcy. Weird. If every company was doing so great, the economy should be going through the roof, which is clearly not the case with unemployment at record highs.

Recently I have been thinking about what advice I can give to my son as he grows up, and I have come to two conclusions - 1. Life is an unnecessary waste of time, and 2. There is nothing to look forward to.

Think about this - if I ask any one of you this question - 'What have you achieved in life so far?'
You might say, 'I aced the SATs'. Yeah, but so did a million other people. Or, 'I met this hot girl at the gym and fell in love'. Yes, but she is still with you, and in all likelihood is not so hot anymore. Or, 'I have the most gorgeous baby.' Yes, and wait till he grows up and sucks life and money out of you, not necessarily in that order. All your achievements, which you have been thinking are awesome, are actually mundane and pedestrian, and have been achieved over and over again by a million other people.

In my life of 35 odd years, I have achieved 3 mentionable things maybe, and that's a big MAYBE. Seems like an awfully long time to achieve 3 things. These things could have been easily achieved in like 3 months. At this rate, by the time I am ready to 'close shop', I will have wasted 70 years to achieve what could have been achieved in 6 months. What an enormous waste of time!!!

Life is humdrum, you do the routine things every day, wake up, eat, sleep, wake up, over and over again. Why is everything awesome? What is there to be excited about? I think realistically, we have nothing to look forward to. Tomorrow will be the same as today, which is the same as yesterday anyways.

So this year, let's make two resolutions. Let's be unhappy and brood away to our heart's content, and let's not be excited about anything. And let's not feel guilty about missing deadlines or being lazy. In fact let's make it a point to do no work and be lazy, because life is a waste of time anyways.

Hello World!!!

Being a software engineer and a computer science academic, it is but mandatory that my first blog is titled this.
So Hello everyone, all blog readers and writers out there, and everyone else who is curious about blogs or apathetic about it.
This is my raving and ranting space, and I will rave and rant here.
I will talk about life a lot, how it sucks and rocks at the same time, and how I am coping with it. I shall also write about software and computer science, because that is my area of professional expertise.
I have a horrible sense of humor, which some people laugh at and some people scoff at, and that will also be on display.
Whatever I write though, and whether you like it or not, will be from my own experiences and knowledge.
So Hello again, and lets share blog space and our experiences and anecdotes.
esesbee