Dear Max,

Five months ago I quit my full time, well paying job, and ever since, things have been on the up and up. With extra free time, I now have I’ve been doing a lot of volunteer work and also writing almost non-stop, gaining a fair sized gathering of followers on the internet in the process.

It has been the happiest time I’ve had in many years.

My problem is that I’m now running out of money, and by taking up a paying job, I’ll lose the extra time to write and volunteer, two things that I wish to continue to do at any cost. 

How can I keep the other shoe from dropping so I can continue on with the happy life I’m living now?

Dan

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DAN.

YOU IDIOT.

In this life, there are some problems you can solve on your own. This is DEFINITELY one of those problems. You did the WRONG thing coming to me.

We’ll start by addressing the severity of your situation, because I’m reasonably concerned that you have no idea just dire your circumstances are. Let me put it this way:

As of right now, the world is your oyster: hard to crack open even with all the right tools, and disgustingly unfulfilling when you finally succeed. You got in touch in the nick of time – had you left it any longer, I would have had a tougher time pulling you out of such a tight spiral. Luckily, there’s one BLINDINGLY simple solution to your problem, and I’m going to lay it out for you. SIGH.

You need to completely overthrow capitalism in all of its forms. I know. It’s almost too obvious – but sometimes the simplest solution is also the most effective one. In order to do this, you’ll have to get to know your assailant first – and lucky for you, I’ve already done most of the legwork.

According to the Internet, capitalism is what happens when you write a word with its first letter as a capital letter and the remaining letters in lower case, following this same pattern as you begin new sentences. I’m not totally sure what exactly this has to do with the economy, but it’s critically important that you pay attention to my instructions and follow them blindly in any case.

Now that you’re in the know, it’s time to start rounding up an angry mob in order to begin a violent insurrection. Your mob needs to be equal parts easily enraged, surly and ticklish, so you’ll need to keep this in mind when you’re auditioning potential mobmembers. Suitable patrons include (but are not limited to):

– Anyone who has ever been a part of a ska band

– HOTDOGS from Big Brother

– Kraft employees responsible for iSnack 2.0

– Russian women

– People who have deeply offended Taylor Swift in some way

– Taylor Swift

– This man who sat next to me on a plane once:

THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO READ THE PAPER I AM STILL SO MAD AT YOU.

Once you have your mob together, it’s time to take to the streets. Be sure to also note the dismal failure of the Occupy protests of 2012 at this time. Simply, they were far too polite, easily scared by armed law enforcers, and did not set enough shit on fire. I can’t emphasise enough how far a little controlled scorching inferno can go toward letting society know that you’re a) serious and b) wildly irrational. With any luck, world leaders will take note, and you will be successful in your quest to reformat the rigidly puritanical English language once and for all.

To get you started, here’s an example:

As an added bonus, you can safely assume that at this point, you will also belong to a select group of writers who can manipulate your new lexicon well enough to profit from it. Don’t be afraid to be assertive with your demands, either. Ask for EVERYTHING – paid maternity leave, your own assistant, sick business cards – because just like Survivor’s Brandon Hantz (NB: all readers. You will not regret spending fifteen minutes of your life watching this), you are now the author of your own destiny.

Hope you know where the matches are,

Max.

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