Friday, November 11th 2022
It’s weird looking at that date being written. I’m exactly one week away from my ending date. It feels crazy to actually arrive here. Today is Friday, today is prep day for my day off but after this, just six more days.
It’s really early on Friday morning and as expected, there wasn’t much sleeping. When you sleep away most of the day, you can’t expect to be too tired at night.
You know, the basic format of this year has been early morning ruminations. You wake up and it’s still dark and the world is quiet and the thought comes into your head and suddenly it’s very interesting to flesh it out and see if you can’t find the end of it. Sometimes these things seem like serious Revelations and other times it’s just a matter of clarification. Possibly this is connected to sleeping and dreaming. Part of the purpose of dreams is to rectify and resolve problems that the mind has. Maybe a lot of this year has simply been waking dreams.
I would hope that this would not take away from the purposefulness of putting these things into words. I don’t consider these things fantasies or things I’m pulling out of nowhere. And I certainly have not been speaking in the hopes of speaking to a mass audience. I’m not really saying anything to create cheers or booze from Big blocks of nameless and voiceless people. This is not a rock concert. But I did hope that perhaps I might find some place in independently minded people who might agree with some of my philosophies. I believe that independent thought, free speech and allowing people a vested interest in their lives is the only possible sustainable future. I hope I’ve made that clear. It’s up to all of us as individuals to work as a team and to care about our communities.
So I just saw a really interesting video from a commentator I’ve never seen before. He is sort of a reasonable thinker who is staring at conservative media as a way of boiling down their point of view to single understandable points. It’s an interesting perspective. This particular episode was about whether or not Fox News is turning on Donald Trump and also how Fox Media plays to a mass audience, literally telling them that being a part of a mass audience is the greatest thing in the world. It’s exciting anyway. Lots of blood.
The reason this jibed with me was so much is the fact that he is pointing out that they are pandering in the hope of creating mass movements. This has been the basic trick behind Fox News and Sinclair media broadcast companies as well. It’s probably true throughout Europe and the whole world where the media talks about people as being a part of a group and how exciting and supportive it is to be a part of a group. The implication is that if you join the group, you have some benefit to yourself. At least there will be some excitement. Bread and circuses, baby, join us and help make a wave.
There are two things to consider. The first is the obvious point that no one is actually being offered anything of benefit to the individuals out there who are asked to join. They are basically creating a selfless group of sheep who just simply want to feel a part of things. There is no payment for joining this wave. There is no medical or dental or quality of food changes. Nobody is doing anything for the economic climate for these people or allowing them anything else other than the excitement of joining their “winning” team. Literally, they just get to be a part of a picture but don’t actually get paid anything for their services.
The second is that by speaking to an audience as if they are a block of people rather than individuals, there is a gigantic inherent disrespect here. Literally, you are asking for an individual’s mind to simply not exist. There is no concept that there would be any critical thinking, rebuttal argument or even that someone might notice that they are simply getting their time and energy and efforts stolen from them. They do not get to do anything for themselves.
I guess this is like dying and being reborn in Christ. You yourself must surrender and be taken along. Turn the other cheek, pay your taxes and put your faith in God. Well, God and Donald Trump and the Nazi party and United Russia and the oil business. Let’s all put on our most beautiful clothing and go out on the street and wave at cars. Let’s just be a good group and make a nice photograph and wave your flags high and proud.
What bullshit. What complete and utter bullshit.
When I first started this writing, I was living in town and I was bicycling a lot and one day I found a notice that there was a group bike ride. The ride was sponsored by some kind of a political group and I thought to go check it out and see what the story was. In my life, I’ve participated in a few Mass bike rides. I’ve been a part of a few critical mass rides where bicyclists gather as a group and basically slow down traffic in the hope of raising visibility and consciousness. This is for the safety of people who ride bikes instead of polluting the world. It’s a good cause and there’s a reason to bring a mass of people together. Maybe it’s fun to be a part of a big group but really, the group is there to make a big political statement that is specifically for the safety of bicyclists. That makes sense to me.
But the whole time that I was riding with these guys, I could not find a single Rider who knew the cause of what we were riding for. And what is worse, it was not an act of civil disobedience for the purposes of raising consciousness for anything. Literally, it was a demonstration that we were following the rather pointless and backwards bicycle laws dictated by the government. The current laws are so entirely on the side of automobiles that automobile drivers even feel free screaming at or attempting to hit bicyclists who happened to want to use the road. Riding on the road by the way is the safest variant because you don’t hit pedestrians on the walkways, you’re not forced to ride on really badly built walkways and flowing with the traffic means you are going with extremely predictable and legislated movement. People can’t ride in their cars erratically because it’s too expensive to have collisions or accidents or even pay traffic fines. Pedestrians are very dangerous to ride amongst because you never know what they are going to do.
The point was only that it was a mass ride. The word that is critical is Mass. This was a group of people, not a group of individuals, just a group. They were making a picture. They were demonstrating compliance.
Me? I wrote any damn place I wanted to. I rode next to them, I rode at the back of the line, I rode at the front of the line. I rode on the road next to the line. In fact, I made it a control game to see if I could just stay on the pedals without ever dismounting to cross the street. Another traffic law people are expected to follow. Complete bullshit. Literally, it takes bicycling which is a very quick and efficient manner of getting around and turns it into an inefficient and slow wave getting around. Complete bullshit.
As we were heading towards the end of the ride, one of the “leaders”, I never did find out who they were representing or what the point of the ride was but a blonde lady with a very loud voice started screaming at me. She asked me whether I was joining the group or not. My answer was easy enough. Why in the hell would I ever join her? I don’t remember getting anything from this except riding around with a bunch of zombies who had no idea where they were riding around. This was a pointless exercise in compliance. I’m no fascist. I don’t need under the table secret organizations. In fact, I don’t even remember meeting any individuals worth talking to. Every time I ask the question the only answer I got was that they didn’t know.
I mean seriously, it was complete and utter bullshit. There was no point to it except to agree that we were a part of a group and our group had rules and that we had no say about those rules. I went home alone. I showed them a finger even saying that I was number one. And I am number one because we are all number one to ourselves, aren’t we?
Maybe this is the idea that just never gets to anybody in the world of mass media and mass politics.
I guess it’s not hard not to see the financial possibility of holding a show at a baseball or football stadium and having tens of thousands of people pay tickets to see the show. I guess it doesn’t take a ton of brains to understand that if you can gather tens of thousands or even millions of people into a single place, you have the opportunity to make a ton of money.
What is happening though and I guess what has been happening for as long as there has been politics and shows that take place beyond one’s community is that the people who have the power to do so, love these Mass gatherings and do everything they can to continually exploit them. Literally, the entire world becomes the NFL or MLB or the NBA. Everything that happens, every moment of public policy or statement regarding the public trust is put out there for the applause and the booze and the mass consciousness being moved in a particular direction. We as people are expected to do nothing more than make really stupid noises on que.
This was a long time ago but I remember when USA Today came out as a newspaper. This is when we still had newspapers. This was a new thing. A stripped down and colorful form of news making. There were no long articles by journalists. All the information was reduced to simple sound bites and colorful pictures. A lot of it came along with the technology that allowed for color printing. Literally they just dumbed down the act of journalism to appeal to a mass audience. And yeah, they made a ton of money.
What is the history of the USA Today newspaper?
We also had periodicals like the national enquirer which were obviously scandal sheets and yellow journalism and just nonsense stories about aliens abducting people and secret liaisons between celebrities. It was understood that these were popular magazines and not newspapers and nobody ever thought of them as anything more than light entertainment. That was until USA Today got started. USA Today was the first major national example of tabloid journalism. Entertainment posing as genuine information or better, genuine information specifically repackaged to be entertaining rather than informing.
Years later, we are now looking at a marketplace that has more infotainment than genuine information and more people who no longer have the ability to tell the difference. I have referred to this effect as snow blowing, just adding in so much more information so as to cause information overload and disallow people from having a clear understanding of the facts. Most conservative arguments that I’ve heard lately, Herschel Walker being a perfect example, seem to be talking nothing but gibberish. They are simply there to entertain and create emotion but not to bring up any direct points about what to do with public funds or reasonable choices about building a good civil society.
I’m not saying that all of this is new. Politics has always been a dirty business and mudslinging, simply talking shit about your opposition, has been around since the Greeks went on stage. There is absolutely nothing new to what I’m talking about. What is new is our ability to unify masses via electronic entertainment and to use ridiculously wide-ranging media outlets to create groups of people well outside of the insulation of their individual communities. And this is the genuine problem with all of this.
When I first came here, if you had something to sell or if you were interested in buying something, you would turn to a single newspaper. The story I love to tell is when I put an ad for someone to clean my floors and got 279 women to answer the call. I usually tell the story for the humor of it but it’s an absolute fact that I got 279 women and two men to call me because it was an opportunity to make some money doing a job they understood. This said a lot about the economic world the community was living in but it also said something of the power of the community newspaper. If you wanted to know who was working, you read the paper. If I wanted students, I could put in an ad for about 2 weeks and I was guaranteed to get calls. Everybody went to the same place for their information and literally, it was the backbone of the entire community.
That newspaper is basically dead. It is still around and people still use it but their readership has fallen, they really don’t have money to do anything and the amount of places that people will place their attention is now astronomically different. The young people grow up with a telephone in their hand and they are only paying attention to national or international sites. Instagram is global, tick tock is global, Facebook or VK is global. We no longer look to our own communities for what we need, now we do all of our purchasing internationally or nationally. All of this is great for the oil business but absolute death to our individual communities.
This is the result of group thinking. This is what happens when you stop believing in the intelligence of the people you’re trying to talk to. This is what happens when you specifically do things to stop the intelligence of the people you are talking to. And this is what happens when you disallow intelligent information from even getting to the people you want to talk to.
The results are everything we are talking about. Nobody can make their money within their community anymore. This was the first thing that happened to me when the mobile phones came and the Russians first placed themselves on Ukrainian territory. They also placed themselves on Belarusian territory. Suddenly I could not live off of the support of this town anymore. I was no longer a member of the town, I was suddenly seen as an outsider. I was no longer popular as a teacher, I was now simply an American.
I’m not the only one who lost their business in all of this. Last year I took a stab at helping out the market. I tried to point out that keeping at least some money flowing within the community was in the interest of everyone in the community. But they would not listen and you couldn’t stop the flow of people heading to the supermarkets that were so much more convenient and had such a clean appearance. This was a one-way ticket out of our town of our money, a big payment to the oil business for all of the transport needed but still, nobody picked up on it. They were just told it was modern and better and they agreed.
If we are talking about town, I think the biggest thing to happen since then was our new beautification project. Two of the main streets were rebuilt and made more aesthetically pleasing in their way. It was hoped to create the shopping district or at least a place where people could walk around, listen to incessantly loud music and spend their money on corporate places that might be placed there. Definitely a western model. Definitely a lot of money was spent on this. And suddenly, it became a really popular place for people to walk around aimlessly, waste money on caffeine, alcohol, Grease and sugar and to take pictures of each other dressed in glamorous clothing. And this was all we did as a town because it was the only Mass gathering place there was.
By the way, it is illegal to have any other Mass gathering without registration. Mass gathering legally and technically means more than three people. If you ask people to do something as a group without a specific license, you can be arrested.
So, what’s the diet? There is no specific place to talk to the people of the community about your specific needs. They may be scattered and have places on social media but it would be mixed in with 99% national or international media and has to compete with all of that for your attention. This also doesn’t count entertainment possibilities outside of information that never has anything to do with your community.
We are all well aware that the government makes up rules as they go along and that whatever laws they feel like passing get passed. We know that there is great issue with the local election process but that never seems to mean anything and our current government not only never finishes their terms, they’ve also passed laws that say no one can ever change this way of life.
Meanwhile, without a vote or voice or even the ability to make one’s way within the community in any reasonable way, people become completely powerless. There is nothing left to do but be funneled through cattle panels into herds. Literally, the police come and make sure that the cows go through the appropriate Gates and stand in the appropriate place and do the appropriate things. Literally, it becomes a bright shiny cattle farm.
So you know, you can argue about my presentation here. I ride a lot about people in genuine need. I write a lot about people who spend their lives suffering one way or another. I write about slavery a lot. I write a lot about the paradox between a place that actually believes that they are stronger as a group without ever understanding that all of their rights as people have been taken away from them. They have had their money, their communities and even their abilities to be anything viable taken away and yet they still look for someone to speak to to say how great they are. They are nothing more than cannon fodder for a war they have no say in because they are no longer considered people. Nobody even has to pretend anymore.
Anyway, this is my thought here this morning. I’m not completely convinced that it is readable in a left to right writing without editing. But maybe it is. Maybe I’ve made my point. Not that I believe it matters because I don’t believe anybody’s reading me except for the KGB and possibly the CIA. I don’t believe anybody who’s reading me except people who are paranoid about losing their power. I certainly don’t believe that I’m being read by individuals looking to make the world a better place by contributing their efforts to a genuinely good and life-affirming cause. Those people would inherently be ecologists by Nature. I would never really appeal to consumers. I am an anti-consumer. There is no way I am built for a mass audience because I’m just not Instagram worthy.
All the trolls that I’ve gotten have all by the way come from the same voice. That’s the only troll I ever really get is that I do not conform to Instagram style or Instagram philosophy. I’m just not a member of the crowd.
But quite frankly, other than bullshit prefabricated excitement, phony excitement, fake excitement, what the hell do you group people get for all of your compliance and devotion? What do you actually get? I don’t see any profit in it. I don’t see any profit, any love, any security, any community or any genuine happiness. All I see is a growing pile of garbage, hatred and a bunch of people I would really rather not hang out with.
Yeah, 44 weeks of writing this year, 42 last year and 45 the year before trying to say what I just said right there. Crazy. The world is just crazy.
I guess I’m preaching non-conformity and individual thought and Free speech. That makes sense. This is all I’ve been doing my whole life. This is who I am and what I believe in and what I believe to be true. I’m voting. I’m voting for individualism. I’m voting for what I believe in. I believe individualism and freedom of thought mixed with a common sense sustainable approach to life on planet Earth is the true path for everyone. We need to practice this as a group individually.
I am voting my conscience and I believe everybody should do the same. We all need to help make the world a better place for everybody.
***
It’s 7:15 a.m. and it’s starting to look like the Democrats are going to take the house. It’s not only that there is no red wave, by my last two counts, the Democrats have a chance for the 16 seats they need for the majority.
As of the moment, the Democrats have 192 seats and the Republicans 211. However, it certainly appears that the blues are leading in 16 of the remaining races and two others, California’s 13th and 41st districts are neck and neck right now. If the blues take even one of those, this is actually insurance. Even without those races, the Dems are likely to have the $218 seats necessary for an advantage.
And we can put this very slim margin together with a deadlocked Senate where ties get broken by a democratic vice president, and the blues look like they are holding the country.
Now, what is positive about this is that there is no clear bullying majority possible. It’s not just that one side is in the minority and therefore become subservient. Because both sides are so even, it is going to force individuals to consider propositions from both sides. I’m not actually talking about Democrats taking envelopes from Republicans for their vote. This is possible but it’s not my point. The point is that because you do not automatically pass or veto laws because you have a gigantic majority, these guys will actually have to work for a living.
It’s not over yet. It’s not over at all. But like Rachel Maddow said on the morning of the elections, late in The game belongs to the Democrats because of all of those write-ins and early voting. The blues are only going to get stronger as we get down to the last votes. I’m thinking this is a very positive result.
This being said however, I have been using the British Guardian as my main source. They have been illustrating the news directly from the associated press and as one of the Great liberal and independent English language newspapers of the world, I do not doubt their honesty. But unfortunately, their main headlines do not bring much happiness along with them.
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will hit record high in 2022
Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will hit record levels this year, according to a comprehensive analysis. The finding represents a brutal contrast with the need to cut emissions by half by 2030 to restrict global heating to 1.5C and avoid the most devastating impacts of the climate crisis.
There is no sign of the decline needed, the researchers said, heaping further pressure on the countries whose representatives are meeting at the UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt to deliver real and rapid action. Other scientists described the news as “bleak” and “deeply depressing”.
Xi Jinping tells China’s army to focus on preparation for war
Xi Jinping has told the People’s Liberation Army to “focus all its energy on fighting” in preparation for war, a Chinese Communist party mouthpiece has reported.
Xi said the army must “comprehensively strengthen military training in preparation for war”, having warned at a recent party congress of “dangerous storms” on the horizon.
KFC apologises for Kristallnacht chicken and cheese promotion
KFC has apologised for a push notification sent out via its app inviting German customers to celebrate the anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews by ordering fried chicken and cheese. It sent the message to its customers on Wednesday, the 84th anniversary of the Night of Broken Glass in which Nazis led gangs in the torching, vandalising and ransacking of Jewish shops, businesses and synagogues across Germany. The event is seen as the beginning of the Nazis’ systematic attempt to annihilate Europe’s Jewish population.
Or basically, nobody has learned anything or will learn anything or do anything different.
So there you go. Thanks for the optimism and thanks for the pessimism. It is a very good news source for your English language news.
***
It’s 1:00 and I’m in the cafe doing preparations for tonight’s meal. I put together some dough for bread and in a minute I’ll make some kind of a hummus. I also made myself some lunch. Probably the simplest thing I can make here, just some onions and cabbage with noodles. It takes about as long to make as instant noodles. But it’s tastier and has better texture and I can control the spice level. I like it spicy.
Most probably I have just spoiled my appetite. I think I’m generally a bit out of sorts today. I’ve had visits from Lena and Tanya. Both of which have no problem telling me how terrible the other is. Tanya has gotten her daughter to give me a call about some English lessons. This is going to be pro bono basically. But if the girl at least shows me some effort, I guess it won’t be so bad. There is a barter that has something to do with cleaning up a bit but I’m not sure I’m going to avail myself of the service. I think it’s a matter of smoking.
I’m going to try not to get too deeply into my own psychology here but I really hate tobacco cigarettes. I hate the smell and I hate what they do to people. I hate the nervousness and the excitability. Tanya is a chainsmoker of course. She has all of the usual addictions and uses all of them to keep herself revved up to the point of insanity. I am getting quite tired of trying to talk to her because she explodes within moments of anything she feels counter to herself.
In my life, I’ve never really been able to maintain any kind of a relationship with a smoker. My father, as always, had a simple lesson regarding smokers. He said they were pigs and the wisdom tends to hold up. I understand that people feel the same sense of Elegance gesturing with a cigarette. It’s actually one of the most disgusting sites I know of in my life and I am extremely hard pressed to find beauty in someone who self-medicates in this way. My mom was a smoker. But like I said, I don’t really need to delve too deeply into my own demons.
I think what I’m trying to say though is that I don’t get along very well with criminals and drug addicts. I don’t get along with people who have no common sense and no ability to control themselves. We all have our needs. I probably could have rethought this noodle lunch. I probably could have thought deeply about wasting resources I might want later or spoiling a nice appetite that might make this evening’s dinner more special. I’m not even completely sure that I was very hungry. Probably I was just nervous from Tanya’s visit.
The argument is always what is legal and what is not legal. It seems the government and of course the Christian priesthood can’t help themselves from getting involved in people’s addictions. I don’t really believe that either is genuinely interested in helping people. If they really wanted to help people to stay away from addictive substances, they would make them very difficult to attain. If cigarettes were not available as a cheap narcotic for the lower classes, we generally would have a lot more intelligent people along the bottom. We would have more artists basically instead of people chasing consciousness away at every opportunity.
The same is true for alcohol but really, you can’t find anybody at any economic level who doesn’t use cigarettes and alcohol. I think my henpecked neighbor doesn’t smoke or drink but he is absolutely under the chicken woman’s heel. He has no strength to argue with her and she is a complete bully. And a liar of course. I would love to have sympathy for the fellow but all I would tell him is the truth: only a fool marries a whore. Words to live by.
But the hunchback across the street and my neighbors in the other direction along with the chicken people are all the same. They are brutal alcoholics and cigarette smokers. Chain smoking is basically the rule. I think there are some men in this village who don’t smoke but drink themselves into stupidity at every opportunity. Everybody is using all of these legal drugs everyday. It’s part of their lifestyle and they no longer relate to the stench.
Tanya is of this class unfortunately. I don’t think it was my intention to take advantage of her but I definitely think it was her intention to take advantage of me. She is pretty happy for her daughter to get some attention but basically I had to beat her off with a stick just to get the information into her head that it’s not her deal. Everything is up to her daughter and the girl will either work or not work. She will show up to class prepared and be ready to use her head or I probably won’t be her teacher for very long. I probably won’t be her teacher for very long is the truth because I’m not really sure of the girl’s abilities to keep it together nor am I that happy with the thought of her mother coming around to do things. I appreciate the emotion but I don’t believe it goes any further than the possibility that I will feed her addictions. She also is never going to get used to the fact that I won’t give her any money anymore. I am doing enough for her family right now.
This morning we had an interesting conversation. She called me up to tell me that she knew that her daughter had made the call and that they had an appointment together. She is nosy by Nature. She came over to talk to me about the situation and I asked her if she could simply manage not smoking before she came over. Her snap response, her fighting response, was that she loved to smoke and that was the law of the land. It was only when I told her that maybe she didn’t need to visit that she agreed to restrain herself from smoking long enough to talk to me. Our meeting lasted 10 minutes. She couldn’t stay any longer. She couldn’t take the hysteria inside her.
No, you can’t reason without alcoholics and you can’t reason with drug addicts. I’m not talking about coercion. I’m not talking about threats or having them understand how you are powerful and they are not. That’s not my sport. I’m just talking about the ability to stay calm long enough and to have enough honesty inside you that you can have a discussion and come to agreement and we can trust each other that they will hold their word. If you ask Zelinski about making deals with Putin, he would tell you that there is no sense in it because there is no way to trust the Russians at their word. Once again, he can’t be reasonable with that sort of person. You can’t make friends with addicts.
So why should I give the girl a chance? The true answer is because I live here and I have hopes that I can make the world better in some way. Maybe over the course of time, Tanya will gain some sense of personal thought and at least give some attention to perhaps not keeping herself chemically stimulated every minute of her life. No, it’s not my business what she does with herself. But if she did happen to catch a clue, I would have a more valuable friend in town. There’s nothing better than capable friends.
Lena and I by the way have a superb relationship. We understand each other very well. I am not kidding myself about believing too much about her or her character nor would I bet too much money against relapses. All I’m saying is that she seems to be spending a lot of time sober, she doesn’t smoke and therefore she has the slightest sense of reason about her. She is still a wing nut, she is still too tweaky to genuinely relate to. But the fact that she is a widow trying to make it on an extremely limited pension while basically 85% blind, you have to genuinely appreciate the effort. And making the effort seems to make her happy too.
Selfishly therefore as a result, I have a more defendable friend because I have a more dependable friend. Forgive me for making judgments like this on the people that I know but I am, like all people, selfish at heart. I am no Jesus and I am not here to die for anybody’s sins. I’m also not here to represent the financial abilities of the United States nor do I wish to be seen as the quintessential example of a Jew. I would rather not be objectified in any of these normal ways. I’m just saying that I appreciate that she does jobs for me. She makes my life better and she’s not horrible to hang out with for a few minutes. When she’s sober that is. But she is mostly sober now so there you go.
There’s not much else to do but clean up basically. I’ve got to give the floors a good sweep and I guess I’m ready to take down my drying table and wash the screen ahead of next year. I could bring some more wood into the warm room and I need to go get some carrots, beets and greens for tonight’s supper. I have a bit of studying to do and I might want to do a little shopping for a delivery next week. It’s not that important at all and I can probably also wait till next week to formulate my official complaint about the blackmailer in the medical system. And what else? Nothing else. Tonight is Shabbos and tomorrow is my day off. Sunday I might get a visit from my ex partner. And then next week is my last week of journal writing.
And that’s it. I’ll be back later if I run into something worth talking about. Perhaps something real will happen in Kherson or even worse, something desperate might happen locally. But basically that’s it.
***
By the way, as of the current moment, the blues look like they are going to win 15 of the 16 seats needed for control of the house. There is one vote in California that is very close. It’s not over yet and it’s an absolutely 50/50 split going right down to the wire. But it’s possible for the blues to hold on and win It. Let’s hope those late-counted, write-in votes go the correct way. We need all the help we can get.
***
Okay it’s about 4:00 p.m. and the light is starting to change. I think I’m good for this week.
Basically what I’m trying to say is that life is possible on any economic level. You don’t need a ton of money to have something. Certainly we are at the whim of politics and it’s hard to ignore the economic power of the United States. They waste more money than most countries have in their budget and nobody seems to be able to come to grips with the fact that it’s a bit of a fascist Nation and getting worse all the time. I’m not overstating this. The monopolistic Christian coalition and the oil business run the place and everything else is just dealing with it.
There are two things that I do that I am not ashamed of in any way. The first thing is that I try to stay reasonably close to Nature. Or if that’s not true, at least I try to respect nature and try not to cause too much damage. I agree that my electrical consumption was really high this week. I used a lot of electricity to dry those mushrooms. But those mushrooms came connected to a local lady who has been really good to me. I mean, I have a closet full of mushrooms now, easily enough for the winter and she still wants to help take care of me. Okay, she’s in need of money and she wants her daughter to have English lessons. Well, I have a local lady with whom I can do business. I don’t see anything wrong with that and I’m not ashamed of that either.
The second thing is that I don’t have a huge budget. I don’t require brand new clothes all the time. I don’t really go shopping for anything other than necessities. I use old school tools, hand tools as much as I can and wherever possible, I will make it myself. I am not saying I am talented joiner, but everything I seem to have built for myself is sturdy enough to still be standing. I take a lot of pride in this and frankly, it seems to be very good for my health.
So the point is that I don’t really think it would be the end of the world to pull back a little bit and leave a little money in your pocket for a change. I don’t think it would be so terrible to go ahead and think through your problems and ask yourself whether you really need whatever it is you are paying for. I haven’t owned a car in 30 years and have never felt the least bit bad about it. I like where I live and I like the nuances of it and I don’t owe a penny for it.
We don’t have to run around like crazy chickens. We don’t have to travel a million miles. Sometimes what you want and what you need is right exactly where you are. It is certainly more sustainable this way and there’s nothing wrong with living in a community. That’s life.
Oh yeah, and Kherson is free.
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