(This is my first "Salon Open" post, and I'm trying to figure out what this is all about. So I'm venturing a "blog post," without any idea of where this will appear or how anyone will read it. So thanks for reading -- if anyone is reading.)

I'm about to retire. And thank God for it.

I've been working since I was eleven years old, starting with picking strawberries and beans in the summer, next to Mexican migrant workers. I have dug ditches in North Carolina, harvested Christmas trees in Washington, replanted forests in Oregon, gutted fish and killed crab in Alaska. But as a young man I yearned for something more.

So in more recent decades I went to college, and then embarked on a "career" involving office work. Of course it wasn't really a career. Just a succession of jobs thematically connected. I made good money and paid the bills. But it was never anything I planned on.

But I digress. When one is about to retire, one wants to pass on to the younger generation something of value. One wants to distill all of one's wisdom into a few words so that others coming along may benefit. So now in my geezerhood I will now share with you the most important thing I have learned.

Apologies for the language, but whether at work, at home, or in the world at large, we all know when things are fucked.

We know it instinctively. We may not use that word to describe it -- choosing instead to use more polite euphemisms, but we know in our heart of hearts when something is fucked.

But in the complexity of modern society, we don't have a nomenclature to describe just how fucked things are.

Thus, I have developed The Six Levels Of Fuckedness, that I will now reveal to you. (Normally I charge people for this, but I like all of you, so this is free.)

The Six Levels Of Fuckedness

1) Fucked. You know what this is.

2) FUBAR -- Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition

3) Cluster Fuck -- many interrelated things fucked up.

4) Moving Cluster Fuck -- a cluster fuck that that is mobile. You try to catch it, but you can't.

5) Parthenogenic Moving Cluster Fuck -- a Moving Cluster Fuck that independently spawns yet other Moving Cluster Fucks. (Example: the war in Iraq.)

6) Transdimensional Parthenogenic Moving Cluster Fuck -- a Parthenogenic Moving Cluster Fuck that spreads itself across all dimensions of space and time.

So from now on, when something is fucked, you will be able to categorize it appropriately, and perhaps even respond appropriately. You have to know what you're up against.