Decision

I remember when I returned to Trinidad. It was part of a year long negotiation between the old man and myself - on the phone, he would tell me how great things were and that he wished I was down here. After a year of that, any well intentioned son would consider it. And the potential was supposed to be there; Trinidad was supposed to be an internet hub in some of the original plans I had seen in the 90s.

And I wanted to start my own software company. A proprietary software company, back then, doing contract work and competing with the folks in India. It seemed possible over the phone, my father being the bright ray of sunshine that he could be when he believed in something. I'd seen it before. In the 1980s, when he was trying to sell Rain-X down here and no one was buying (and for a while there during this decade, guess what? 20 years later...) When he was starting the advertising magazine from within this same house, the 'Trini Trader' - and when a fellow named Jeeran Singh hosed him on that by doing sales and pocketing the money. 'The Solar Company', where I wrote his business plan and when the bank wouldn't loan him money because of the collateral... it was my issue with the business plan. Someone had to be blamed, I suppose.

Oh, so many entrepreneurial attempts... and all well intentioned, good ideas that were before their time.

I fell into his footsteps somewhere, I think. I don't want to spend 20 years on a good idea, though. I'm sure that eventually Trinidad will get its act together, or will improve in tangible ways that would be better for me. But how long am I supposed to wait? When I returned here, the truth dawned on me slowly. A cousin got into IT, someone I grew up with, and over beers he seduced many with his tales of how he would work with people. That man can sell you your own dirty underwear. He's good at talking. But nothing he ever said to me has been proven to be worthwhile.

The beauty of the Internet is that you can telecommute, and this I have done for almost a decade now. Its a thin living, most of the time, but it can be had - but it isn't enough, and every time you turn around there is a concrete wall of bureaucracy that is being discussed by other bureaucrats. And meanwhile, you get to know that concrete wall very well - even better than the bureaucrats. And the ugly side of the Internet is that you see people move on with their lives while you are trapped behind the wall. You make excuses, you lie to yourself, you even get involved in the bureaucracy at some points until you realize a fundamental truth about the Digital Divide: It is there by design. And as someone who is usually on the bleeding edge of technology - even in a 'developing nation' - being on the wrong side of the Digital Divide is a definite issue. It doesn't work. And, oddly enough, people on the other side of the Digital Divide are given more credibility than people who live with it every day.

Well, now, I'm 36. In a blink of an eye, I'll be 37. And time passes, you see, but bureaucracy doesn't change in human years. It changes in generations; it takes generations for change to happen. I suppose that Sisyphus is the best metaphor. I'll whisper you a truth about Sisyphus, though: He might have thought that fire was worthwhile the first million times he pushed that stone up the hill, but after that he started questioning the value of the stone. And so it is with me. I have grown weary of this stone; I did not make it and despite my best efforts I cannot change it.

I am beaten by the weight of bureaucracy. I suppose I could be proud that it took so long, but that would be hubris. I've always been smart, and I've reached a point in my life that I am no longer ashamed of being intelligent... but somewhere along the way between the planting of gray hair, I became a little wiser. Atlas shrugged.

So I've decided to go 'home' - the other side of that digital divide where I don't pay the price for the bureaucracy of others. I'm thinking it will take about 9 months to get it together, getting the money together, finding myself a steady income somewhere in the US - but its time. I've been waiting 2 years for a probate in the bureaucracy of a developing nation, and that waiting has been bad for my soul. It swings like a pendulum that every year grows longer with the stone of Sisyphus on it.

And so, the decision has been made. Wish me luck.