Dieters, Newsletter recipients and my fellow Americans.

You are being used and you had better wake up and smell the roses before it's too late.

Because of his recent foragings into the money meadows of the WWF, we now can add Jesse-the-User-Too to the list of users. The list then is complete and we can close it once and for all --there is no one left to put on it.

There is no one left when you especially take note of item 7 on that list: 7. everybody... which is to say, we use each other too.

And not always just for good.

But then, not always just for bad either.

Do you distinguish between the two?

If you don't you should. Being used for good is good and being used for bad is bad. We call the latter: "users", but for the former we have --to my knowledge-- no name for it so I suspect most people don't differentiate between them.

But to repeat if you don't you should...differentiate, discriminate between good and bad.

For example, medical science "says" two things that should be of supreme importance to us. First, that the human body, in theory can last 150 years and secondly, based on everything we know today the upper, maximum life span for us humans at this point in time is about 120 years.

This statement is soooooooooooo good I almost have a you-know-what thinking about it.

If we don't fully trust it that's ok, but if at a minimum we take the statement at face value for the sake of speculating and thinking about it, we have to ask a very serious question.

If you die before age 120 you have to ask: where'd my excess go? If I die at a hundred, I will only have lived 80% of my life, where'd the other 20% go?

Did it go to the politicians in the form of excess taxes?

We have come a long ways baby...boomers. Your parents at least didn't let "them" take excess taxes in excess of excess taxes. But "we" accept the idea of surplus taxes!?! Since "we" apparently do accept this, there is something wrong with us. If you doubt it and want to see just how far we have come, then compare it to the fact that that 1700's "Boston Tea Party" was a protest over a 1/2 of 1% tax rate. Today's 30 to 60%(!?!) total tax burden (depending on individual context) is 60 to 120 times worse!?!

Although, I suppose, you could argue that since tithing for their church was probably something a good deal number of people did back in the 1700's you could argue that this 1/2% was experienced as part of their total tax burden and then conclude that our total burden is only (?) 5 times that today. Maybe our bumper stickers should read: Since tithing was good enough for the Church any tax rate over 10% should be considered excess. This "tithing" issue especially becomes apparent when you think about two things: first is the fact that one of the three proper functions of a government is to protect me and you from thugs 'n thuggery and secondly, is the fact that in the old days The Church was a sanctuary from "thuggery". That is, "they" provided this "protection" as one service of religion. If the Old Church provided the other two proper functions of government and did so for 10% and we supposedly live in a modern, high tech-high efficiency world, where does The Government get off saying they need 50% of everything WE make!?! *

Or did your excess, or some of it at least --like mine-- go to the credit card companies in the form of excess interest rates and fees? 30 years ago I took out my first credit card, the interest rate was 6% and I got half of that back in the form of a tax deduction: a 3% net cost. 29 years and 11 months later --that is, last month-- I missed a payment on one of my credit cards and the interest rate --instead of its usual 18.46%!-- was 25.43%!?! and thanks to that recent President of the 1980's who Rush Limbaugh keeps telling me "cut" my taxes, thanks to him not one penny of the 25 plus % comes back to me as a tax deduction.

Is there any "roses" here in the form of Big Government and Big Credit Card companies to "smell"? *

Or if some of your excess didn't get sacrificed to political-economic "excesses" will some of it go to preachers, ministers, rabbi's, priests, shamans and whatever's in the form of excess pleasure denial? If it is true --like Biocentric Psychology says-- that pleasure is a profound psychological need, doesn't it follow that a deficiency of it will have consequences like all need deficiencies do for humans? The usual form of which is premature death. The only debate being over WHAT age we consider to be premature.

Or if not to excess pleasure denial, then will some of your excess go to the Minnesota Indians in the form of excess guilt disguised as slot machine money-tokens? A monies that could be spent lobbying (or bribing if you prefer) our politicians so that they'd see to it that average, everyday Americans have the same rights as the free, independent Indian nations that have a right to gamble on their own ground. Apparently, they have a right to use and dispose of their property as they see fit. Since THIS is the correct definition of "property rights" I ask you: where's yours?*

And here is ONE place where we do have a choice in our thinking about this. And that is this: do we want to raze the Indians to our property rights level or do we want to RaIse ourselves up to theirs?

Or if you didn't sacrifice some of your excess to the Indians did you do it in the form of hours upon hours of wasted time spent on admiring celebrities rather than honoring self?

Or to all the hours upon hours of wasted time watching TV rather than reading and studying philosophy and psychology so that you too could bring yourself up to speed intellectually and help the real adults in our country take it back from the (individual rights ab)users.

I know you think now --after reading that last paragraph-- that I am using this opportunity here as a personal soap box. Well, you are kinda right, I sorta am but before you stick your head back into the sand, please hear me out.

As a human being you have volition, which means free will, which means free choice which means you have to choose to think and/or be aware without anything causing you to do it. Which means, volition has no, none, nada antecedent causes other than you. You are it.

There is no--as Biocentric psychology has already said-- no big dude coming along to take care of you. You have to learn how to take care of yourself and the sooner you start to become a real adult the better off we all will be, you included.

Nor is there going to be any organized, esprit de corps group of Objectivists that are going to come along and see to it that the altruists of the world are going to be stopped once and for all from demanding and extracting your self-sacrificing ounces of excess flesh on a day-in-and-day-out basis. A sacrificing of self, that is, to their ideals. If you want the western part of the earth safe once again for individuals you have to contribute to the solutions, not continue being the problem.

There is no one but you.

You are alone and you alone can make the difference.

Believe in helplessness if you want to, but don't pretend that such a believe has no, none, nada consequences.

Rather, ask yourself this: did this belief take some of my excess?

And it is not too late.

It's never too late.

Although this last isn't exactly true: if you are a Hundred and nineteen years old and are hearing these kinds of words (see above) for the FIRST time it probably IS too late for you. Better luck in your next life.

If these words are making you mad and you decide to live to be a hundred and thirty just to spite me, that'd be fun too.

I know that now --after a life time of being you-- the choice to live to be 120 is somewhat not there.

But, as our beloved "Protein Power" diet has demonstrated, healthy eating is a possibility and for sure it does contribute to longevity.

Please allow me to add this disclaimer here: i'm (notice the little I) i'm as afraid as the next guy to take total and complete, 1000% responsibility for everything I do. If I were to die tomorrow, I know all you would say (or think), wow! what a bullshitter, I guess god got him.

And this would be your choice.

But, you could choose differently...if you so choose.

So the human power to choose is a big power, but it is not an omnipotent power.

But, who said it was?

I didn't. Objectivism didn't. Biocentric psychology didn't. So where'd the notion come from?

You guessed it: religion.

I know some of you are thinking: where'd he be if he didn't have religion to kick around?

I bet you same guys voted for Nixon.

Oh well, I didn't vote for Nixon, but I did vote for Jesse-the-(child-in-a-man's)-body Ventura and so I can no longer criticize those who voted wrong when they voted for the Nixons and Clintons of the world.

Or can I?

If I give up my right to criticize, won't that be me giving some of my excess to ... to what? False ideas? Failed philosophies? To what?

What DOES it mean to give up your excess?

Excess what? Time? Money? Life?

The latter, that is Life as time & money is the excess we here speak of.

Not happiness, because that is something we can't give to others in the same way we can give money and time.

Happiness is not give-away-able.

Thank god for that or "they'd" pass a law saying I'd have to give some of mine to you.

Metaphorically speaking of course.

So I guess you have to decide.

And life goes on.

But not necessarily yours...nor mine.

So I am going to adopt a new motto here that I'll utter every morning upon waking and I suggest you do the same:

"If I don't die today, I'll live to be a Hundred and twenty".

Respectfully yours,

Gary Deering
a future member of that 5% group
who manages to keep their weight
loss lost forever.

P.S. (Fellow Dieters)

Here's the fully worked out plan as you requested:

1. When you reach your goal/OWL weight pay coach Rebecca $1 per pound lost. (Rebecca, find enclosed my first installment check for $31.)
2. On March 2^nd , 2000 --our 1st anniversary-- pay Rebecca $1 for every pound kept off (I know that this is a negative for us-the-dieters but we owe it, so pay up with a smile). For example, if I weigh in at 169 (29 pounds still lost) I pay another $29.*
3. And so on and so forth for the 18^th month (9/2/2000); 24^th month (3/02/2001); 30^th month (9/02/01) and finally for the 36^th month which will be our 3^rd anniversary (3/02/2002) and final group meeting.

Plus note, at any point after that 1st payment if we put weight back on over and above the originally lost amount, Rebecca pays us a $5 per lb. rate up to a cumulated maximum not to exceed the cumulative amount we've paid her. For example, if I weighed in at 200 lbs. (something which will NOT happen, but if it did) then Rebecca would pay me $10 (2 lbs. over my starting weight of 198).

If my prophetic signature above comes to pass then I will end up owing Rebecca about 155 bucks and I will pay it with a smile.

Thanks Rebecca for all your hard work for me and our team. *