Andy, the moment has arrived for me to state my case.
Let me begin by stating that I appreciate your concern for my well being very, very much. I belong to a couple of groups (let's not name them) and so far, you are the only one who has offered to put out the distress signal.
Providence has seen me through tough times before, and will see me through this rough patch, again.
This is the price I am willing to pay for being a part of this free society we prize as America. I don't begrudge it. The journey borders on sacred for me. Two friends have invited me to stay with them, one is in Texas, and the other in Pennsylvania. I prefer it here in S. Cali. I am not in any danger, and definitely not depressed.
My one mistake - one of several - was not buying the RV as I was prompted back in 2013. Instead, I bought a second car, an older Mercedes, which I eventually had to sell at a loss. Then maybe we wouldn't be having this discussion. I can sustain myself on $20 per week for groceries. My car is permanently parked, no need to move it for street cleaning; so, zero gas expenditures. I start it only for a few minutes to recharge the battery. I figure, adding laundry, toiletries, car registration and insurance, I could theoretically get by on $1,200 per year. I walk everywhere I need to be, like library (for internet access): great exercise! I wish I had a laptop and a solar panel on my rooftop, but that's for later.
This is my public profile in case you are wondering if I am real: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/public-profile-settings?trk=prof-edit-edit-public_profile
Don't worry about me or wish I was in a better spot. I am at the right place at the right time. I am saving to buy a modest home. "Live simply so that others may simply live" would make a good motto.
I've known better times. I've had the good fortune to live in a luxurious lakefront condo with the wrap-around view of the water from the 43rd floor, with the marble floors, concierge, etc...where the sun rose in one bedroom and set in another.
When you get to be my age (62 in March) after you have lived in nine countries, been in two military conflicts as a child, and at death's door from 3 heart attacks, you quickly prioritize your wants and needs. Only someone who has been through it can understand. After a meal and a roof over my head (I have both), a homeless (room-less would be more appropriate) person needs a sense of purpose. And this can come in the form of participating in the greater good. There are scores of talented people (young and old) who have fallen through the cracks and live aimlessly on the streets without any purpose. I see them every day on Venice Beach and Santa Monica.
I must disagree with you on one thing. This bit about being cushy-comfy-cozy in a room and having one's self-actualizing pyramid intact before one can participate in political life would have been laughed at by the ancient Greeks who considered it a moral duty of every citizen to participate no matter what station in life they were in. I choose to be where I am. Even if I was making $50,000 per month I would still be living in an upgraded version of my Jeep, like maybe a 24 foot RV until I saved enough to purchase my dream home with a vegetable and fruit garden.
Nelson Mandela was influential from a prison cell. He wrote: "No shackles or cells can match the strength of the human spirit."
Gandhi, no stranger to a minimalist lifestyle, wrote: "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
Personally, I find that I am finding myself all the more the more I seek to move your cause forward. At the end of the day, you have the final say, and I will respect your decision. I understand your line of reasoning: that it is unconscionable to engage someone living without the basic necessities into a political campaign. But politics was never intended for the comfortable.
I suspect when you are elected President there will be many days when heavy decisions will weigh you down, when competing crises will make for arduous long days and nights. The little discomfort I am experiencing these days in sunny Southern California will pale in comparison.
Abraham Lincoln. What can we say about his self-actualization pyramid?
1832 - Lost job and was defeated for state legislature;
1833 - Failed in business; Declared bankruptcy
1835 - His sweetheart died;
1836 - Had nervous breakdown;
1838 - Defeated for Speaker;
1843 - Defeated for nomination for Congress;
1848 - Lost renomination;
1849 - Rejected for land officer;
1854 - Defeated for U.S. Senate;
1856 - Defeated for nomination for Vice President;
1858 - Again defeated for U.S. Senate;
1860 - Elected President.
It resembles a typhoon-shorn tent.
The list of names who despite insurmountable odds made their mark is extensive. JFK's "Profiles of Courage" is a good gauge.
I would not dare compare my life to Lincoln's or Gandhi's.
I do know a little about setbacks, though.
In 1990, I had a nervous breakdown after a painful divorce. I lost everything. The separation from my children took a huge toll on me. I became clinically depressed and unable/unwilling to find work for a year. Medicated and broken, I persevered.
Providence intervened, helping me land a job as an investor qualifier for a stock brokerage firm. I was producing five times the average number of leads per day. My voice was my greatest asset. They told me I could make good money as a stock broker, which I became, and began making a six-figure income in the first year, advancing from a junior to senior position in merely six months - and then voluntarily quadrupling my child support payments (for six children). Not many dads can make this claim.
The 2008 crash hit me hard. By Dec. 23, 2009 I had depleted my resources and landed on the streets of LA, sleeping behind bushes and eating out of trash cans for the first time in my life. Christmas day 2009, I vividly recall: I found a pumpkin pie in a trash can. That's all I had, and a donut. There was no room in shelters, so I ended up in a halfway house from March to June of 2010.
The compound was a cross between an asylum and a detention center. Lots of out-of-control people in there. I slept in a room with two of them. One liked to play his radio through the night. The other one paced endlessly in and out of the room.
I walked daily to the library where I went online to look for work on Craigslist. Thank God for Craigslist.
Providence intervened again. I was hired by Darryl Quarles, writer of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Parenthood, Family Ties, and Amen, as one of his fundraisers. I quickly made some money working on the phones for him. His office was in the Sony building, right in the Howard Hughes Center, a study in contrasts if there ever was one. Soon after, I rented my own place.
I am a private person and don't like being so personal, but you are forcing my hand.
Then, in 2011, I went on to work for Richard Waryn, formerly managing director of Dubai Capital Group’s private equity activities in the CIS Region, a precursor to Dubai’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. Later that year, I incorporated my own Nevada project finance corporation and consulted for Larry Namer, founder of E! Entertainment (which he had sold to Comcast for $411 million). One of my accomplishments was convincing Larry to change his $5 Million business plan to a $100 Million plan. After all, he was penetrating China. We still stay in touch.
This is another example of how I bounce back with God's help.
Word got around somehow, and late in 2011 I was recruited by TerraGreen Energy Resources LLC (www.tgerllc.com) as Managing Director, Global Projects, Finance and Investments. The company owes me $240K, which I'll never see. I would not be in this rut if the CEO had kept his promises. Everyone is looking for him. I invested a ton of energy for his company, of which I am a shareholder. I went "all-in" ...putting in 24 hr and 36 hr days sometimes, at my health's expense.
Currently, I work with foreign shareholders and their agents in search of loans (over the internet). I have other plans, which are on the backburner for now, like my clothing line: www.paolopoffandi.com...and my lifetime goal to debate either Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris (or both) www.thefinalgoddebate.com. Christopher Hitchens would have been a treat. I miss Hitch, a great deal.
Yes, I designed all my web sites.
These future self-actualizing plans have to be put aside for a bigger cause, a cause much bigger than all of us put together. It's called America. And it starts with a website for the future President of the United States.This is what I am trying hard to convey to you, and you just don't seem to get it.
As soon as possible, what you need (as you will be the trailing candidate, at least behind Hillary, in this upcoming race) is a website that clearly enunciates your platform and let's people know a little about you. We can design 3-4 mock ups and choose the one that fits. Then, the website needs to go viral. We also know you will be out-funded in this race and, therefore, under-exposed, and for this reason you need to put out your name asap before 2016. You can always hire a website developer later an upgrade to a snazzier layout. For now, work with whatever you have at your disposal. It will take maybe a month or two to complete the website(s).
In this effort to introduce you to the American public there should be no moral impediments. No level of poverty or illness should impede anyone desiring to assist.
To invoke Churchill's speech given at a time when Europe was being systematically swallowed up by the Nazis:
"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Notice Churchill did not say: "Let's wait until funds roll in from the New World before we begin our fight". Time was - and now is for you - crucially of the essence. The faster we create public awareness, the further ahead you will be in the long term.
There is no perfect time to start. Launch with every device under your command and then upgrade later as funds permit.
And just in case you are worried about my wellbeing, I am fine, thank you. Here's proof.
I fear neither poverty nor wealth, only that I might forget my God, or America.
Finally, I've told you a bit about my heart condition. My days may be numbered. I've had 6 stents and 4 procedures, so far in less than 5 months - there may be more coming. I hope you would see fit to grant a dying man his last wish of contributing his two-bits by designing a website for your Presidential campaign.
Cheers and God bless,
Paul Adams
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