Casually Compromised - Book 1

Chaos

"I'm told you're the guy I gotta meet..." Mr King said rattling thru the phone like a mad man. "You bolted from the party early, I really need your help!"

He was right I bolted from the tech party early last night. I'm a bundle of nerves sometimes in large crowds. Ever the debating introvert extrovert. Most would say i'm an extrovert, but people drain me, and then I go into a serious mode of fuck it don't care. Hovering over the bar, sucking down bottles of beer faster than most.

Thats bad when you're talking to future clients and folks you want to leverage someday. The whole tech scene is a game of who you know, what you can do, and what degree of audacity you bring to the table to enable it. I was an outlier, a non-conformist to the general state of things, though I figure everyone aspires to be that if you're starting your own thing. I was the sketchy one, literally, I would break out the paper and start inventing things, drawing sarcastic doodles along with maps of inspiration. I spoke my mind and was known for mad ideation, truly mad, like either seen as brilliant or fucking crazy. Regardless my persistence or something, just got me known. I dunno, I made alot of things. Kinda funny cause that was a long time ago, now I'm surfing on that reputation.

Coffee was hot, conversation, we'll see. Mr. King had met me on this beautiful morning to discuss his big ideas and see how I could help him.

Mr. King opened a full salvo of hard core tech concepts at me before I had my first sip of coffee. He dived way deep into radar tech, then discussed hard core complexities of 3D printing and then rambled on into quantum mechanics and autonomous design. With every statement of his brilliance came a notion of need, and then a damned prophecy of why it wasn't all working. This was standard founder paranoia. I felt his urge for a perfect unified everything. It was terrible.

I kept playing back a few scenes from Dukes of Hazard I caught late last night on TV in my head, wishing to think of anything other than this conversation. I liked those old shows of my childhood. Anything was better than the insanity Mr. King was giving me. I truly blocked him out, creating a montage in my mind, part Dukes of Hazard reruns and then fuck it lets add some Vera and the club in there. Transporting the whole Panera into the club, picturing Mr. King rambling like a ringside douche bag with strippers doing pole tricks next to him. Imagination was a fantastic gift. It would be the very thing he'd use to conceive of this diatribe of madness and for me it'd be the very thing that would help me endure it.

"What do you think?" he said looking up, finally getting a sip of his own coffee and I got mine. He had gone on and on for some 20 minutes. The club faded from my mind, sadly still at the Panera.

"Well you're inventing too much, too many things are not working out for you cause your system is too complex." I said blankly.

"But look at the things you've accomplished?" he said staring at with wide eyes.

Yeah about those things. First it makes you wonder what story he was fed at the party. People often pawned the crazy ones off on me saying "Find Parker, he's nuts like you..." or someone truly thought I could help him. Often I was the sledge hammer, the grand nay sayer which I never wanted to be really. Just cause I made alot of things didn't mean I was an authority on them per say. Maybe I told people in ways that motivated them to find a way to still do it, i dunno.

"You're not accounting for chaos man." I said eyeing the window and the blue sky emerging from the clouds.

"Chaos?" he said.

"Yep, the unpredictability of nearly everything likely to happen to ya- your biz model, your product, your customer, your world you're envisioning its all too perfect and laughable. You think you're wrestling chaos but you're wrestling yourself, chaos hasn't even entered the room yet." I said pondering the temperature outside, could I pool? I needed to get submerged badly.