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Stimulate the economy, give a poet a dollar.

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Comments on this column:

So, maybe Bill Gates really IS the Antichrist! (David Downing, St. Paul)

Brilliant. Harper's? (Jim Thornton, Sewickley, PA)

Very good column - In spots it was almost poetic and a little poignant. (John Boxmeyer)

Check out The NEW Why Teams Don't Work WINNER, Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award, "Best Management Book, 1995" by Mike & Harvey Robbins from Berrett-Koehler Publishers

America's best-loved essayist, Robert Fulghum recounts the tale of a student of his back during the 1960s, at Seattle's Lakeside School.

This particular student was not especially outstanding academically. Nor was he a smash socially. But Fulghum observed that there was one feat he could do in public that no one else could do, and that earned him plenty of pocket money.

The student was able to step into a plastic garbage can and then jump clear out of it, without ever touching the sides, and without kicking the can over. He would land catlike, on his feet, beside the can.

If true, it's an extraordinary feat. Most people, to jump out of anything, need to bend their knees to get springing power. This young man evidently was able to jump with minimum knee-bending. Like a hovercraft or harrier, he rose vertically from a standing position, moved laterally in space, then alighted.

The young man was Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp.

And we know how catlike Gates would be in later dealings. How he snatched the liver from IBM's plate in the 1970s. A company with next-to-zero resources outwitting, according to Tom Peters, the "smartest company in the world."

How he had the gall to defeat Apple simply by copying the Macintosh idea, and using the MS-DOS installed base to leave Apple in the dust forever.

How he created a computing standard that no techie loves, and users trust their work to only against the bitter experience of repeated crashes and losses.

How he created a business empire and a personal fortune unseen since the days of John D. Rockefeller -- and as targeted by the long knives of antitrust. Gates makes as much between Tuesday and Thursday as the vast majority of us make between birth and death.

I have friends who literally think of Gates as a demonic entity. And I say literally literally. Maybe that is how he jumps out of cans. Maybe, if you were to grab him and strip off his shoes and socks, you'd find he isn't human at all -- that he has small, powerfully beating winglets, Hermes-like, jutting from his ankles.

Half human, half-hummingbird.

So I have always felt odd feeling sympathetic to Gates. It may sound great to be the world's richest man. But could there be anything that cuts you off more from your own kind?

They say Gates is very paranoid. But if everyone wants to see you destroyed, is that paranoia?

I remember reading that, as a child, Gates was so distant from other people that he was described as borderline autistic. It is not unusual for someone very gifted in one aspect to be ungifted in another.

So here is a picture of a man more doomed than Midas. Being human, he needs love to grow. By doing what he has done, he has made it very difficult for people to love him. And by being what he is, he is unable to accept love even in the unlikely event it is offered to him.

Can you imagine the stilted nature of being a close colleague, or a pal? From his perspective, no one thinks of him as just Bill -- his power is too fantastic to be shrugged off. There is nowhere he can go to know peace and acceptance -- not to the wilderness, not to a tavern, not to his $300 million all-digital home.

Even his marriage, with all the best intentions on both sides, must be a source of strangeness and discomfort. My wife Rachel knows I need her, and would be lost without her. This desperation, while pathological, bonds us to one another. Our "poverty" keeps us humble, and glad for what we have.

Can a 70 billion dollar man mate for life? Or is the 70 billion, and the power and energy radiating from it, like the pulsing egg sac of the termite queen, his true mate?

What could be more American than the idea of freakish mobility, leaping from a can, or rising into space?

And what could be colder than the way the gold inside a mountain robs a man of the gold inside himself. The human delight in surrendering to gravity, and falling: Rosebud.

Picture him doing it. He hands his glasses and school blazer to another student. He climbs in. He grins. He springs upward. He is giggling as he clears the lip, his red hair flopping in his wake.

He's still laughing through his nose, nervously -- no eye contact -- as he grabs his classmates' dollar bills and walks away.

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Why not bookmark Mike's columns for your weekly enjoyment?

Stimulate the economy, give a poet a dollar.

I enjoyed serving this essay up for you, and I did it for free. But this writer is currently out of work, and a bit of revenue would gladden his heart. If you'd like to contribute to this site, consider dropping a $1 tip in the "Honor Box" here. Just click the CLICK TO PAY image here. Thanks - Mike