Small Entreprenuers Are Not the Problem! They Are Needed To Restore Equality.
The more the merrier and the more difficult for Central Inc to control all!
I was raised in a small business in a home, I get annoyed by the portrayal of small business persons as being only in it for the money and necessarily pursuing a singular goal of becoming larger. That’s not the way it is and it’s about time society started listening to small entrepreneurs instead of telling us what we want and asserting who we are from someone else’s perspective.
Small entrepreneurship exists outside the grid.
Small entrepreneurs may often find themselves under social attack, the bane of being different. The quality that the small entrepreneur has that engenders attacks is self-esteem. The grid worker is constantly dealing with authorities that direct the worker and prevent the worker from hearing and respecting their own thoughts. That is intentional because the grid is centrally managed from the top down. The grid worker must listen to management’s thoughts, not their own. They are there to serve, not to create.
The true intention of small entrepreneurship for many who pursue this path is to live a quality lifestyle. The small entrepreneur is an independent who develops the skills of listening within to determine goals and to filter out the background noise. We all interact within a world that makes demands upon us, but if one occupies a space where one can hear one’s self think, one has a better opportunity of recognizing which background noise is necessary and which can be dispensed. Listening to one’s self means taking one’s self seriously which is self-esteem. Workers in a crowded office do not have the luxury of a space where they can hear themselves think. That alone explains why, after being given the opportunity during Covid to work at home with the possibility of creating a space where one can hear one’s self think, a critical mass of workers decided not to return to corporate headquarters.
As I witness relentless and largely unfounded attacks on a local small entrepreneur, I put it into the perspective of the psychological culture perpetuated within the corporate grid that discourages rather than encourages individual self-esteem. The person with low self-esteem may not recognize that which motivates him to attack another who inexplicably has the self-esteem to pursue an individual vision. The effect of having one’s self-esteem constantly undermined is not self-evident, as understanding requires time, space, and will to self-reflect. And so low self-esteem is turned outward toward the other. The other is the small independent entrepreneur existing outside the grid.
Today as I opened up the app to start writing, I noticed this verification notice, which had never been there before at the top of the screen:
I have been using my Andersen Design email list. I am not proactively expanding the email list so there is no cause for a problem.
I clicked on more information but it did not provide instructions for verifying an email list and so I contacted support. Perhaps all will be resolved by the time I finish composing the post. Perhaps not, I thought.
It felt eerily like a nemesis from the Empire trying to prevent my voice from being a part of the conversation, nothing new in Boothbay, thinking about the letter I wrote to the editor of The Register about looking for a person to convene a Green Party caucus that did not get published. When I asked the newspaper why it had not been published, I did not receive a response. I concluded that the Boothbay Register does not want the Green Party to gain steam in the region.
This town’s leadership is not friendly. That does not extend to the people of the community in general but it seems that the ones with the negative attitudes feel that they should go to the Town Selectmen and complain that something is happening that they don’t like, people who feel no one should be allowed to live a lifestyle different than theirs. The people who take a live and let live attitude are not going to march down to Town Hall and complain that there is someone in this Town that they think is different, even unique, even creative, though the complainers would never say out loud what the bee in their bonnet is buzzing in their ear.
Meanwhile, I was taken by surprise when I found messages in my drafts with tips on how to get a conversation going in the comments section. Is it automation- or is it specifically speaking to me, I wondered. I attributed the messages to Substack, but one never truly knows when one is dealing with cyber personas. Logically it makes sense that the message is from Substack. first of all, because this is a Substack platform, and secondly because Substack’s shortcoming is in the area of social interaction and the message is consistent with developing social interaction.
All the platforms are competing with one another and adding competitive functions. I am developing a following on LinkedIn at a steady clip now that LinkedIn has instituted an article-generating newsletter feature. LinkedIn is a social interaction platform giving it an edge over Substack.
LinkedIn Posts have a long life span. The readership of a story does not slow down even after publishing several other posts. The first post that took off on Linked In is Is 2024 the New 1984? We Change the Path We Are On Thoughtfully and Incrementally. The primary message of that post is that we, as a society, need to think about implementing employment rules over wealthy non-profits that don’t pay their laborers and then invest their surpluses in tax-exempt real-estate assets. Extrapolate what kind of a society that might become in the near future.
Another layer of data just kicked in on that story, It seems that the more reads a post receives, the more layers of data are reported.
LinkedIn does not have monetization while Substack has a paid subscription option, but that is immaterial for me, today.
Substack is cool. I like that one feels somewhat hidden when one develops a following via Substack. I have engaged a lifelong fallacy of imagining myself to be invisible, observing a world that is unaware of me. This likely comes from growing up in Boothbay where I was a social outsider. That still persists today but not the same way as it is experienced in one’s youth. As a young person growing up in Boothbay I did not identify with being a part of the social context. Without any conscientious or intellectual analysis, my favorite poem in high school was Emily Dickenson’s I’m Nobody. She spoke for me! Now that I think about it- How weird!
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Being nobody seems perfect. A nobody has no need to protect their power and authority over others and adapts a live and let live attitude until people start interfering with what is important to one’s life and values, which is what is going on in Boothbay today, with Lester Spear being targeted for no other reason than being unique and creative and developing opportunities for a class of people that the Town leaders ignore, the grassroots entrepreneur, which is up and coming these days but I don’t think Town leadership has caught on to it. They are too embrangled in the power politics of the centrally managed grid economy with its entrenched superhighways of wealth redistribution that governs all and makes everywhere the same.
Current interactions surrounding Lester Spear put into perspective what happened to Andersen Design when my parents wanted to build on the property they owned across the street from our house. I was not around at the time but I imagine that they encountered a similar culture of vehemence, as is currently being projected on Lester Spear, even when they had been part of the community for about a quarter of a century. In high school, they used to say that after 15 years they were still not considered locals. Now I can say that after 70 years, Andersen Design is still not considered to be part of the local economy by that faction that ends up running everything, which is the same faction that runs everything everywhere. It’s time for a change. People will die of boredom if this trend is not reversed.
As you can guess from my favorite high school poem, the desire to run things is not part of my nature but when one is pushed up against a wall, one does what one has to do-speak out and let one’s voice count.
The signs at the Winter Faire are mentioned in the newspaper in the list of concerns as if an event identifying its location with a sign is crossing over the line of public acceptance.
Lester Spear is a man doing his vision his way and so the signs were out of the ordinary and quite beautiful. Lester ordered the unique light signs to be made up in Japan. He placed one that said Winter Faire in the Center of the Common and another that advertized his brand on the side of the Common. In the season of the lights, it hardly calls for regulation unless the Town management is going to regulate everyone’s Christmas lights. How fun would that be? Or why is it different than an art installation that the Town economic development “experts” promote? Or the Dunkin Doughnuts sign that Coulombe installed and is the first thing that greets the motorist when the motorist enters the Village Center, a permanent installation that I once compared to an Andy Warhol print.
Apparently, the presence of a unique and unusual sign upset Spear’s distractors because the signs have been mentioned without explanation as to why an event having a sign is a matter for public discussion. Doesn’t every organization identify itself with a sign? Are event signs something the Town needs to regulate? It seems more about a faction that needs to assure themselves that everyone is regulated, that no one can act independently, that we must all get permission from someone above us before we can move in any direction. That is the psychology of a society of people under central management. If someone spends their whole life being regulated by someone else, how can they tolerate those who act independently? Should independent action be permitted in Boothbay?
This Town has several groups that think it is their role to design the economic development from the top down. One group is headed up by Paul Coulombe and another is the Joint Economic Development Council of Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor (JECD). Then there is Lester Spear acting on his own as a free enterprise grassroots entrepreneur.
The JECD is all talk and spending other people’s money. They spent my taxpayer money on, among other things, the Camoin Report that recommended museums for the region, and yet refused to engage when I presented them with a concept of a fiscally sponsored museum, telling me to go get help with my own peer group.
And then a year later they are discussing forming themselves as a non-profit rather than a public-private relationship spending public money, perhaps because they sensed the public had had enough of it.
And this is what they say:
“We have come up with pretty much everything that both boards of selectmen have asked us to do – to provide recommendations for economic development in this region. We have the Camoin plan and now we have to carry this stuff out.”JEDC continues discussion on shift to nonprofit
The JECD purchased the Camoin Plan, which provided the requested recommendations. I presented the JECD with a concept related to one of the Camoin Report recommendations but the JECD would not acknowledge that I presented anything at all. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. I was a property taxpayer. They were spending public municipal money, but they would not engage with me. When the JECD told me to go get help from my own peer group they acknowledged that they do not serve the public so they should be a private non-profit and give up the pretense of serving the public. The JECD just spends the public money on those whom they consider their own peer group, which at that time meant advertising for the Boothbay Harbor Merchants during Gardens Aglow. Boothbay taxpayers had to pay for Boothbay Harbor advertising and now it is rumored to be the Boothbay Harbor merchants who are spearheading the attack on the Winter Fair on the Boothbay Common. This is class warfare and municipal warfare. Is Boothbay ruled by Boothbay Harbor? If Boothbay’s current leaders think so, it’s time to challenge them in elections. Boothbay is its own place.
It was four years ago that the JECD was discussing becoming a non-profit but before it could do so Covid hit and the JECD announced it was disbanding. However certain of its members still maintain an attitude of authority. Lester Spear’s event was in Boothbay but for some inexplicable reason, Lester Spear was having to answer to Boothbay Harbor merchant busybodies.
On Nov. 30, Spear met with local business owners and Bryer on Boothbay Common to discuss why he was charging a fee for an event on public land. According to Spear, the meeting’s purpose was to set the record straight. “There’s been a lot of misinformation out there and Betty Maddocks (Janson’s Clothing) asked to meet with me,” he said. Spear reverses decision about charging fee for Boothbay Winter Festival
Perhaps she had good intentions in trying to bridge the Boothbay Harbor merchants who think it is their business what goes on in Boothbay but Betty Maddocks was once a member of the JECD spending organization which makes it all the more astounding that she thinks Lester Spear has to justify a two-dollar entry fee to her. It’s not 79000.00 dollars for a Town Plan that the JECD ignored, or whatever amount of Boothbay and Boothbay Harbor taxpayer money the JECD spent on the Boothbay Harbor merchant’s advertising costs. Did we get a cut of their incomes? Not even mentioned! Yet now the local busybodies are suggesting that the Town of Boothbay should get a cut of the gate for the events held on the Common. If they win that one, which they should not, the Town should make them promise that none of the money will get into the hands of the JECD.
I appreciate that Lester Spear is so willing to work it out with all these factions but what business was it of Betty Maddocks? She is not even a Boothbay resident. The article does not mention her relationship to the spendaholic organization, the JECD. In my view Betty Maddocks had no business interfering with what is taking place in Boothbay. Why did the Boothbay Register publish this story as if Betty Maddox were an elected official or any sort of authority in Boothbay to whom Lester must answer? What business is it of hers what gate fee is charged for a Faire in Boothbay?
The attitude that an un-elected Boothbay Harbor business owner demands answers over what goes on in Boothbay is an extension of that which was conveyed by the JECD’s perpetual complaint that Southport and Edgecomb were not paying their fair share (nothing- which they did pay!) to the JECD. Why did Boothbay pay this organization that seemed to think all business in the region is located in Boothbay Harbor, demonstrating a clear lack of vision.
Lester Spear has a unique vision. I have never encountered an event producer with the originality that Spear has brought to the Faire and so it is no surprise in this town that the meanies are out to get him over a two-dollar gate fee, with Lester Spear covering all his own costs. If he hadn’t momentarily charged that fee, the meanies would have found something else, most likely the stellar light signs.
Given that the JECD told me to go get help from my own peer group when I approached them about the museum, maybe that peer group needs to let other groups and individuals like Lester Spear work as their own agents and not under the supervision of whatever authority former JECD member Betty Maddocks thinks she represents. You can’t tell your constituents to go work out their own problems without any support from your tax-payer-funded organization and then expect to control other independent operators who are doing exactly that.
Shortly after I wrote in the draft for this post about the message on my dashboard proclaiming I needed to be verified, the verification message vanished. It occurred to me that when I started a new post the last time, I soon received the message within my draft about formulating questions. Was someone reading my draft or was it a robot? It can’t hurt to mention the problem in my draft, can it? So either it was a glitch or it wasn’t. It was interference from the Empire or it wasn’t, but it resolved itself as is obvious as you are reading this post, and it resolved itself quickly.
So upward and onward. The Boothbay Green Party Caucus is next Wednesday is the 23rd at 4 PM on Wednesday, Feb 23 at the Town Hall.
The Caucus convener will be Desiree Scorcia who is married to Lester. Plus, Alan McDonald, Candidate Hopeful, as a US representative will be there.
All are welcome but only registered Greens can vote and only registered Greens and the unenrolled can sign for a Green Party candidate.
If you want to be part of a grassroots movement to develop a more representational community on the Peninsula, consider registering as a Greene and come to the caucus! This upcoming Wednesday at 4 PM! Town Hall, Boothbay Center, Across from the Common!
What do you think?