Sunday, November 13th 2022. Week 45
Good morning. It’s probably a little early to be getting up on a Sunday morning. It’s a quarter after 5:00. And even more reason not to do anything, it’s raining and cold and everybody knows that Belarusians don’t like to work in the rain.
Look, straight away I got into trouble. I can’t call myself Belarusian. The Belarusians won’t like it, the Americans won’t respect it, the Jews would laugh at me and the ukrainians would just shake their heads. You can’t please everybody so you might as well please yourself. I don’t like to be objectified. I don’t like to join sides. I like to classify myself as a friend of the group rather than a member of the group. I would happily be one of the group so long as that one was a respected one. This has nothing to do with rank or leadership. It’s just that in a sadomasochistic world, I refuse to be a masochist. If it’s you and me, that’s us. If it’s you or me, it’s me to the end of time.
I guess I’m waxing literary here. I usually do something like this first thing in the morning. This is when my philosophical bone needs the most picking. In the quiet of the morning is when the thoughts seem real and worth climbing on. In the daytime with all of the distractions, I can’t seem to think of anything but what I have to do. This is why I like the early morning. This is why I don’t mind my insomnia. This is why I absolutely don’t mind being separate from the noise. This is why I don’t like Christians.
I was just thinking about the difference between those who spend their lives listening to others and those who listen to themselves. It would seem that this is the absolute root cause of anti-semitism. You go way, way back into history and you have a group of people made strong simply because they read a book. When everyone else is being a good slave and being ushered around from job to job and organized in such a way that they more easily make money and are better soldiers for the leader, this one group of idiots argues. They like taking a day off. They believe in morality. They have a series of checks and balances inside them. They look at you and they say that your ideas are not sound. They talk about things like sustainability. They use their own eyes for judgment. They understand clearly about the bullshit of mysticism and they keep their allegiances no matter how much they are tortured. Mostly. To a more serious degree. The words matter. The ideology is King.
So the answer is to make a mock ideology where people are asked to simply give themselves over to the leadership. The rule there is to surrender and to surrender fully to an idea. The idea is that there is happiness in losing oneself. There is heaven and there is hell, to concepts that are remarkably absent from Judaism. There is fear of what the group thinks of you. There is fear of what the leaders think of you. You argue as to your innocence and guilt and you lie and eyes innocence and beg to be forgiven for sins. Compliance allows you freedom from these sins, at least as far as the leadership tells you. And if the leadership changes the rules as they go along, it is only a test of your compliance.
The Jews would say however that there is only one God. I am good with the concept that God is nature. I argue with my friends in the Jewish community about this. They tell me I am wrong. It is essential that they tell me I am wrong because my answer makes the unprovable provable and the unseeable seeable. It also creates a more sustainable religion because we have evidence of God’s existence simply by opening our eyes we’re putting our hand up against the tree while walking in the forest. Nevertheless, one God means that the leaders are not God’s but only false images, icons, idols and this is absolutely not the truth.
The Jews of course are correct. Man has put great effort into proving that he is God. People work all of their lives for enough money to bring machinery in and re-landscape an area and create something so completely man made that there is absolutely no evidence of anything higher. We imagine ourselves building domes that will allow us to live on Mars. Proof that we are in fact bigger than God.
Except that it never works. Sometimes the rockets explode. Sometimes you get a leak in your space suit. Sometimes the leader gets struck by a touch of dementia brought on by an enlarged prostate or syphilis he caught by accident that the antibiotics never quite killed. Sometimes human frailty causes mistakes. Sometimes human emotions lead to decisions with long-ranging repercussions and misery and death.
Mostly it’s the greed that gets us. Power and wealth allow for a momentary high. You can have so much money but it never seems to be enough. You can have enough money to have you be almost above the law. But the truth is that they claw at you and they drag you down and the amount of other human beings that hate you for what you have grows and grows exponentially with your health. You become a prisoner inside of your wealth needing an army to protect you. It is of course unsustainable and the paranoia grows within the bunker.
And yet, we never stop listening to other people. I’m talking about the Christians now. We never turn off our ears to what other people think or what other people say or what other people’s ideas are supposed to be. We don’t listen to ourselves. We don’t listen to our own conscience. We don’t listen to our own sets of rules of morality and decency. We don’t push ourselves to be better people, we only push ourselves to be greater and more isolated and to have more power.
I’m a chronic complainer. I was told by a fellow Jew that I would argue and that this was displeasing to someone who had the power. That was their justification for stealing. That was their torture. I’ve heard this a thousand times. I’ve heard this from every woman with whom my relationship was coming to an end. They couldn’t wait for their moment of drama. They couldn’t wait for their moment of causing pain to another. They just couldn’t wait for the opportunity to cause harm.
A son of a bitch. This is a wonderful way to say something bad about another person. The implication is that their mother was not a good woman and that they are The offspring of such a woman. We are a world of sons of bitches. We are breeding grounds for sons of bitches. The leadership specifically teaches us to be nasty sons of bitches. The church tells us to be sons of bitches to our neighbors. The leadership tells us never to leave anybody else alone and never to listen to yourself.
I got bothered yesterday. My neighbors have a great way of bothering me. I finally got up to get a bite to eat. It was my only meal of the day but it was too big. It was a mistake. It was those factory crackers that did me in. The meal itself was wonderful. Just some veggies with a little bit of tomato paste in there and some fresh bread and very fatty hummus. It was a lovely dip. A kosher Curry. I was enjoying my laziness. But while I was in the kitchen, the chicken woman’s henpecked husband decided to drive his car and spray my kitchen with auto fumes. I closed the door ahead of it and cursed his family line but it still happened. And then across the street, The hunchback decided it was a good time to run his chainsaw to cut up wood.
Gone was the peace of nature. Gone was the natural silence. The Christians fight you by demanding to take your attention away from you. They don’t use natural noises. They use unnatural noises. They use pollution and machines which are allowed enough to distract you from your thoughts. They throw poison at you. They destroy nature and they do it as loudly as they can. This is their way of worshiping Christ. They prove that God was a man and that they are the best followers and find their righteousness by hating individual thinkers and idealists and people who believe they see through their own eyes and make their own judgments.
I am not a masochist for living here. I’ve been living here for 20 years. And no matter what you do or what you think or what color you are or how you end up being objectified, as a human being, you have to live somewhere. You can’t live nowhere, you have to live somewhere. And no matter what kind of house you make for yourself, you either like living there or you don’t.
Well, when I lived in town, I thought I had a nice place until they decided to do general repairs. for the better part of the summer they had machines running right outside my window so they couldn’t paint and put in new windows and balconies. It was very important for them to have these machines running all day so that it was never quiet. And then it was noticeable that people would go outside and run their cars even in the winter time when the air would just stay and the stench of their cars permeated the apartments. And then there was the stench of the hallways, the backed up garbage chutes that still stank even after they welded them shut. And then there was the great hole in the ground they needed to dig that required a truck to come in to remove the amount of garbage that was now a hundred times more than it used to be.
Even outside of my home, the main streets and the winter turn yellow with the haze of so many automobiles. The sound of the automobiles leaves no sense of quiet. A walk along the new beautified streets of the town’s charismatic and aesthetically pleasing center never allow for human noise. They play music constantly and in the summer when they want more money to flow, there is no place to hear yourself think. Even the monastery will ring its bells and broadcast the sound of a service onto the street.
A bike ride out into the country is a bike ride along roads where trucks that have never had any legal demands that they pay attention to emissions clatter past you at 130 decibels. This is Rock concert noise. This is wartime explosion noise. You go to a hockey game and they play the music so loudly, there is no possible way you can hear yourself think.
And then there are all of the starving lost people who have no concept of letting other people alone. Their eyes light up when they see you. You are the possibility of a party to escape reality by getting drunk or you are the possibility of money to escape reality by allowing them enough money for cigarettes or alcohol for themselves. You are the possibility of presents, a scandal, of delightful torture, of sadomasochistic enjoyment.
And they all believe beyond any rational understanding that no one should be left alone. It is a sin to see someone by themselves. People by themselves are to be feared. People by themselves should be taken advantage of and scandalized and exploited. When they see a person by themselves, they fear. They are afraid. They become fearful.
I saw a Russian war movie. There’s no such thing as a Russian movie that’s not about war I think. If it’s not about war, it’s about clever women making scandals. This was a modern war movie in the style of Quentin Tarantino. A traditional Russian war movie about fighting the fascists, a small group of well-meaning and very emotional communists deal with the miseries of war with that endless stoicism that is the stuff of heroes locally. But the wild card in this was the Красный Призрак, the Red Ghost, a silent, relentless and unstoppable single soldier on a mission to save everyone from the suffering of the Nazis. A perfect sniper, an egoless and soulless killer driven to Insanity by perpetual War who could not stop doing the jobs that others could not. Basically, a human level superhero movie where people completely powerless against fascists might have their lives saved at the last minute by a series of perfect sniper shots taking out their killers at the very last moment.
I suppose it’s nice to dream of a savior in the moments before your own death. And even if they don’t come to save you, you died happy in the belief that a savior was coming. Either way, you don’t have to listen to your torturers anymore.
I go my own way. I have gone my own way my whole life. It is my natural inclination to follow my own mind rather than listen to the advice of others. I used to ask people’s advice as a way of drawing them to me but I don’t really do that anymore. The world has changed and people have begun to hate instead of being interested. People have become manipulative instead of helpful. People have stopped being interested in new things and have decided that nothing can be trusted anymore. It is less pleasurable and there is almost no reason to ask people for advice. Now everybody likes giving advice without being asked. Everybody believes that life is about clicking like, thumbs up or thumbs down. Everybody believes they are supposed to be entertained now. People are not connected to people anymore, only their electronic devices.
I realized that going my own way was faster and easier and more profitable at an early age. I saw that if I tried to fit into a group, it never worked. I couldn’t match my own style of speech to the rhythm of what I was listening to. I learned to fake it pretty well in conversations where I was pretty close to the center. But I was never any good at listening to leaders and going along with them. I never mastered that ability because it never made sense to me. The moment I started listening to someone telling me the absolute truth, my brain kept snagging on the loose ends. And there are always loose ends in the argument. It’s not trolling, it’s critical thinking and I absolutely aced that class with ease in the University. It was as if I was born for it.
I’ve had perhaps four careers in four different spheres. At first, I tried to follow in My Father’s footsteps and sell things. I hated it to an almost suicidal depression. I hated it almost from the moment I began it even though perhaps I had some talent. With certain clients, clients who wanted to believe me, I was believable. Of course there were moments where my integrity was questionable to myself. I didn’t like selling crap to people. But after a while, I couldn’t take the negativity. I couldn’t take approaching people to ask them for money. I couldn’t take being that person. I became allergic to asking for money. And soon I started becoming allergic to money generally.
My second career came after I was set free by my ex-wife. She said that everything was finished, she was free to go home, she was free to steal all the money and leave me holding the bag. Eventually, I saw this as a gift and a lesson learned. I never officially married again and I will finish my life without going through any official ceremony or signing any documents of connectedness. I was happy to be going it alone again where I was faster and could rely on my own instincts and reflexes to get by.
I became a builder because I thought it was more honest and physical. I wanted a job where I didn’t have to talk for a living. But quickly I learned that working for other people was slavery and exploitation. There was never enough money to allow for freedom and there was never a road out of the captivity. So I started going my own way. I had small organizations of pick-up people. I never really looked for permanent employees or anything other than people who wanted to help out. But as long as it was my contract and I controlled the money, I could minimize the problems and keep things sustainable. I found a way to offer people more money for good performance and for them to rely on themselves and their own efforts to help the group through. We made a ton of money with this philosophy. People like Us because we weren’t clever, we were straight up and we did really good work very quickly and without problems. I let my people choose how to work.
But all things come to an end and my next big career was on a bicycle. Bicycling was freedom and movement. Bicycling was freedom from automobiles and the money it takes to ride in automobiles. It was freedom from the gasoline and the oil and repairs. It was freedom from the prison that a car becomes. It was also the possibility of being in the air rather than isolated. I rode a bicycle across the United States and ended up a bicyclist in New York. It was the best job I ever had. Certainly there were politics and jealousies. You can’t ever be with people without politics and jealousies, especially when there is money involved. But then some Muslims became angry at the United States policy concerning energy resources, stole some airplanes and flew them into the tallest buildings in New York and basically broke everything for me.
So I decided to go It alone and went overseas to visit the town that my grandfather was born in. It was a place where there were polite people who were not so worried about money and worked together to make their town and their community function. The idea was that it took people to make things run and everybody took the responsibility of keeping things together as a physical task to do every day. What a charming place to end up in. They were objectifying, of course. They saw themselves as a part of a whole, a cog in the wheel, but they were all at human level. They were all pragmatic earthlings. They never saw anyone as being anything other than a human.
I started teaching English and I was a hit. I tried to join the school system and the University but they had politics so I went it alone. I took up private teaching and was a hit from the moment I began. I had so many people coming to me, I could do no wrong. There were days when lazy students would become disgruntled. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t taking care of them and I didn’t understand why they weren’t taking care of themselves. But even as they were saying they’re dramatic last lines, enjoying the pain of taking their money away from me, you could see a new student through the window in back of them coming to see me to take their place.
But then the Russians got crazy with their power and money. Russia got rich, at least the oligarchy got rich and Putin sat at the top of the food chain presiding over the oligarchies and becoming crazy with power. He had to put his fingers into Ukraine and into Belarus and into Chechnya and into Kazakhstan. It’s the mafia basically. It’s the Russian mafia and they have to get their fingers into everything. And suddenly, everything went dark and brutal. Finally, they broke the red spirit and everybody turned hateful.
So, I went my own way and figured out how to teach online. Instead of drawing clients from a dying community that no longer had any resources or desire to support me or anybody of whatever objectified status I was supposed to be, I drew Russian language clients from all over. I had clients in Russia, I had clients in Ukraine, I had clients in European countries and I even had clients in Brooklyn.
The last thing that happened that sent me to where I am now was pretty simple. I was in a relationship with someone who was very young and beautiful and very, very Russian and there came a Time when she just moved past me on her way up her ladder. I knew it was going to come. She was someone who would go her own way because it was faster and easier. That was the main reason we were together. She was a solid individual and she did her own thinking for herself just like me. But when she was gone, I came back to town and took up bicycling again and found that I much preferred my own company to trying to get along in groups.
I didn’t really like The upfront cafes and I didn’t really like the underground cafes. I didn’t like the Lenin Street crowd and I didn’t really like the criminals at the tea shop. I didn’t like the food or the coffee or the sugar treats. I didn’t like the conversation or the flow of money out of my life. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what I thought I was looking for and I just went my own way. I started paying attention to my kitchen. I started paying attention to my educational life. I started riding alone. And in a moment of sheer terror at the possibility of Donald Trump retaining his presidency, I started writing.
I tried being ambitious about my thoughts. From the very beginning, I believed that the individual should go their own way and should have a clear vote as to how things should be. People have to vote their conscience which means they need a vested interest in their communities and their own lives. People have to be conscious of our connection to each other but at the same time, I believe in life at a human level where we all live on the planet Earth.
This is what I learned when writing about politics. I learned that the most important thing to be political about was ecology. We cannot allow economics to destroy our habitat and our people. We cannot allow parasitic exploiters of resources to parasitically exploit the only planet and the only real resource we have. We cannot live so disrespectfully of others as to create disaster after disaster and expect it all to be cleaned up and the garbage to disappear from our eyes. The garbage remains. The garbage dump is growing. The damage from the garbage dump is starting to ruin our habitat and poison our Waters. We cannot continue to live as we live, exploiting resources, living internationally, receiving all of our food by trucks using unsustainable methods of transportation. We cannot continue polluting our habitat. And the effects of the destruction of our habitat is measurable and seeable.
After writing for the first year, I did it again with the purposes of perhaps being helpful. Once again, I asked people to participate in what I was doing. I asked children and I asked adults. I asked people with money and I asked people without money. I went to foreigners and I went to locals and I tried to get people to at least understand that there might be some sustainable industries and jobs and the potential to go green that might save our communities, this country and possibly even the world.
But all they wanted to do was kill me.
So I decided to go It alone. No particular advertising this year. No real social network presence. I didn’t go and talk at any schools or try to gather any groups of people or start any businesses. Unfortunately, I had some terrible leg problems but quite luckily, my ex partner kicked in and got involved in the gardening. A couple of local people were nice enough to kick in for a few bottles of vodka and money for cigarettes. Slowly but surely I overcame some local prejudices, their desire to harm me, to try and get me arrested or to spread horrible rumors about me that disallowed materials to come my way. Literally, I farmed with my own shit. But it got better and I figured out a way to make my systems work for me. The neighbors are still Nazis. They have no other way of understanding the world except to be fascists. And of course now we have a war right in our backyard and everybody’s waiting for the missiles to start falling.
Truthfully, I believe in the power of the hammer and of the sickle. I believe in human powered effort to make things go. I believe it’s the most sustainable resource humanity could possibly have and the only one that will allow us to live on this planet for as long as god/nature allows the existence of Life on this planet. Everything else we do is unsustainable psychological damage.
In that movie, it is the middle of winter and our band of soldiers comes upon a beautiful wooden Russian country home. The place is warmed by a Russian stove, the people have put up a sauna and have worked hard to prepare for winter. There was a warm bed and a cozy interior and on the table was a beautiful Russian winter meal. Fresh baked bread, kvashenaya kapusta, hot soup, jam and hot tea. And of course a bottle of samogon, homemade Spirit vodka.
The picture probably hit the Russian audience deeply. It was absolutely an ASMR moment. I’ve only just learned about ASMR.
ASMR is abbreviation for autonomous sensory meridian response: a pleasant tingling feeling that some people experience on their skin, especially on the head and neck, especially when they hear certain soft sounds such as whispering or brushing: The sensation of ASMR has been described as being like a mild electrical current.
ASMR is what all artists strive to achieve. It is what all politicians look for when they make their speeches. It is what all lovers try to inspire in their partners. It is the reason behind all propaganda and all Instagram posts and all preaching done at all churches. The ability to produce this feeling is the reason for nostalgia. ASMR is the feeling of intimacy.
However, almost all movies are about destroying intimacy. Almost all movies are about screwing with other people one way or another. They are either about fighting between powerful people or fighting in response to being confronted by powerful people. It’s about cleverness and lies or about fear and terror. It’s always about stress. Beethoven said that all music should be about stress and strain. All art must be drama and all drama is about stress. We never want anything but more stress. We never stop stressing each other.
But then the Nazis came and of course there needed to be a long emotional gun battle. And by the end of the battle, almost everybody was dead. The fascists of course died like flies, from single shots and the Russian heroes all died dramatically in a moment of heroism. The woman and the baby were saved and they were saved by the Red Ghost who gave up his own life to save this group. The only one left from the heroes then picked up the sniper rifle and became a new red ghost.
But the house was destroyed. Everyone’s life was destroyed. All the heroes were dead. All of the soldiers who despite their facelessness in the film all must have had mothers and Fathers and families. Perhaps they grew up under fascist leadership and came to believe in the patriotism and that it was somehow correct to practice genocide and fascism. But then again, that’s nothing new because it still exists today, doesn’t it? I mean, we still have leaders sending troops to practice genocide on neighboring countries to further their political aims, don’t we?
Anyway, this is my last week of writing this journal. After this, I’m going to take time off and enjoy the winter holidays. As for whether or not I do this again next year or something like it is up in the air. In a lot of ways, I’ve had enough of this. It’s actually pretty hard to get motivated. True, I appreciate having this thing to do and sometimes I find I am a better person or smarter or more professional because I take the trouble to figure things out in words. I still believe in the power of a single point of view. I have lived my entire life on the premise that what I think is more important to me than what anyone else tries to tell me and I believe this should be true for everybody. I am against slavery if that was not already evident. But as of the moment, I just don’t know. Also as of the moment, I don’t really care.
This is my story and I’m sticking to it. I believe I’m right. I believe global warming is real. I believe Christianity is anti-Semitism and anti-individualism and anti-conscious thought. I understand that there are those who say it has always been this way but it’s not true. It hasn’t always been this way because we haven’t always had our disturbances right in our own hands. We haven’t always had so much information flowing through us. We haven’t always had this many people on the planet and the planet has not always been this polluted. It hasn’t always been like this. We made it like this. And I believe the answer, despite the numbers, is to go our own way. Not to kill each other but to work together and to try and live peacefully together individually.
Okay, I guess this was a very long and boring and meandering diatribe for early Sunday morning. I’m sure by the end of the week, I’ll have another one of these well looking very carefully for my exit line. Exit line by the way is the favorite moment of all drama people. They just can’t help themselves from saying the most powerful words possible on their way out the door. I’m sure I am no better.
So, one more ride? One more 6-day stretch of words? Why not? You never know. It could be good.
***
Some links.
Young Russians on Putin from the1420 Street interview series.
Kherson is free from Sinad
And from Davydov
Unfortunately, amidst all the party and celebrating, it’s good to be reminded of exactly what is being fought for and who is being fought against. Here is a film about what the Russians leave behind. Here are three films from UATV.
Here is another report from the same people about what Russia left behind in terms of global food security amidst problems of famine already caused by global warming.
With the withdrawal from Kherson to the other side of the Dnipro River, the Russians are now talking about a truce. They are looking for a happy compromise to allow themselves to keep what has been taken. The problems with peace talks start with the fact that nobody trusts the Russians.
And finally, 1420 has one more episode, this one is about what folks in Moscow have to say about the situation in Ukraine right now.
What do I have to say about all of this? How can you tell people who spend their lives spreading misery that they are wrong? How do you reason with people who have been trained from birth to be unreasonable? How can you ask people who have never been allowed to think clearly to think clearly? And how can you ask someone who has lived every moment of their lives a slave and who knows no other ideology other than slavery to be free? I’m not the only one who has ever pondered this problem. I’m certainly not the only one who has ever come to the conclusion that it’s hopeless. The Russians absolutely believe that it’s hopeless. They consider that pragmatic thinking. But of course, they never consider breaking the mold themselves.
All I know is that it’s getting colder. It’s getting colder and it’s going to be cold for quite a few months. Probably the last thing anybody wants us to get stuck out in the cold in the middle of winter. One would wonder why so many people agree to be sent so far from home with winter coming. One would wonder about anyone who would send anyone away from their home in winter.
***
‘Don’t tell me how to ride my bike and I won’t tell you how to ride your bike.’
I haven’t posted much from Zach Gallardo but I have been subscribed to his channel for quite some time. It’s hit and miss and I understand the guy has struggles. He is not above the law and though he does seem to have some economic power, he is not there and so there is still struggle here.
The reason I’m posting this one or the reasons I am posting this one are that sometimes the algorithm reads what I write and feeds me videos that go along with my thinking. I am grateful for that actually. It is a genuine Plus for me. It is possibly a negative for people paranoid about their information being shared. I just don’t have that much to lose so for me, it’s nice that I keep getting offered things that are interesting to me. This video however is simply what Zack had to say today. He is exactly talking about going his own way and riding against the grain. He says that these ideas that are popular are not for him and he doesn’t mind telling you why. The second reason of course is that I am also a fixed gear aficionado. I have been riding a fixed gear since New York and it is also my absolute favorite bike. I also ride a steel bike, I agree with him about frame flex, riding slowly, riding comfortable handlebars and also that it is, if it is built correctly, almost bomb proof and the cheapest bike with the least maintenance.
Like I said, sometimes you get gifts from the algorithm that are planned and force-fed to you because this is how you think. And sometimes it’s just a matter of great minds thinking alike.
In fact, I want to share a few more videos that have nothing to do with food, veganism or the bloody mother fucking War.
The first is an incredibly peaceful video about an incredibly peaceful man saving the world, himself and his family through ART. Here is a kind film from Green Renaissance.
If you ask me what the answer to the apparent problem of what to do with all of that pent up energy we have, I think the answer is pretty simple. First of all, you don’t make it an economic benefit to anybody to stir up the peace. It means putting an end to commercialism and satisfying the needs of people without demanding that they compete for resources. This is true for countries and this is true for the people who live within any borders. I guess it would also be true when we do away with borders and agree that people are people.
When I have too much energy, these days I clean up. This would be inside or outside because I’m lucky enough to have a bit of a garden to play in. It costs a little bit of money to keep any vehicle going but if I’m not opposed to a little money going for new tires or inner tubes once in a while, a new chain and rear cog about once a year and having a set of clothes appropriate to sport rides, I have my bike. It has also been my car for the most part. But it’s better than your car because it’s a billion times cheaper, 10 billion times more fun and when you find the correct situation, you don’t park it and just take it with you on public transportation to get to places you don’t feel like riding to. But I have found that I can carry a week’s worth of groceries on my back or in a set of panniers. I went across the country only with what I carried on my back and panniers. I carry the guitar on my back by the way.
You can play music. Instruments cost money but you are welcome to pick up a pair of spoons and beat on a counter. You are welcome to sing and write songs. You do not need to spend a million dollars on a musical instrument. You’d be surprised how easy it is to make music without being rich.
When I was younger, I lived for playing sports. I didn’t live to play sports the way some people do. I was pretty lazy. But I liked playing quite a bit with my friends. I probably liked playing ball with my friends more than anything growing up. I think if we took the death and hatred out of the world, it wouldn’t really take much to set up sports leagues so that everybody who wants to play can play. About genuine hatred and aggression, I can’t say any reason not to let people have a ring and have a public fight. A neutral and honest referee is nice to have and having a doctor available is kind of a necessity. But if the only way of figuring out a problem is to kick the living shit out of each other, by all means invite the town.
Seriously, what do you think the Pay-Per-View for Putin versus Zelinsky would be? Settle the entire bloody thing man to man. They are roughly the same height. I think they are the same weight. Zelinsky is a younger man but according to Putin’s image Makers, he still plays hockey and practices jiu jitsu. Maybe he knows some CIA tricks that the comedy circuit never taught the president of Ukraine. Something tells me a Vladimir versus Vladimir fight would draw serious coverage globally.
But then there are a lot of individual sports that don’t require team play. You can go running or swimming or biking. You can just go for a walk. You can go for a hike in the woods. You can practice gymnastics, you can practice meditation or yoga. Or you know, you can just hang out in the kitchen and cook something tasty. I just did. I made something stupid tasty.
Or maybe the best thing you can do is find someone you really love and be kind to them. You would be absolutely surprised how completely satisfying it is being kind to someone you love.
I know, I know, I have these utopian dreams and they are not real and they will never happen. God love the people who don’t do anything but troll others when they have their dreams. You want to know what I dream? This is one of my dreams.
And finally, as long as we are talking about naysayers and trolls and other fascist sycophants, here is some wisdom about gossip and propaganda from Socrates
***
It’s 6:00 p.m. and I’m sitting alone in the deep Twilight in the kitchen/cafe. My ex partner has just gotten into a cab and is now heading back to town. There was a bit of a scandal and one big foolish mistake but I don’t think anybody was really hurt. I’ll tell you what happened in a minute. Not a big deal.
It turned out that we had a purpose today. My ex partner picked up three medicinal herbs, I don’t know what this is called. She got pulled in by a grandmother at the market who sold her these three plants for one ruble each. They are supposed to be very flavorful and tea and the leaves make an interesting addition in salads. We moved one plant to the back part of the property and used its place and two other nearby places to plant this herb. I made one trip out to the forest for some leaves for mulch. The job was not hard to do.
My ex partner fell in love with a new tool that I bought. It’s a tiny handheld version of our botchigata. It’s something like a claw hammer but with the claw being a solid piece of steel. This makes it a very good digging and scratching instrument. It’s heavier than a hoe and you can sink the blade deeply into the ground or you can use its extra wait to just bully some weeds or to dig a quick hole. It’s more powerful than a garden trowel.
Afterwards, we made a fire in the bakery and talked about perennial greens. We finally found a place that will sell us a few varieties of kale Hardy enough to winter here. We actually found a whole group of their interesting greens that are not afraid of frost or snow and replant themselves year after year. My ex partner is still not into this perennial self-sustaining gardening. She is a Russian masochist and only wants to grow the usual veggies. The exotics are here. We have businessmen taking care of the seed business and the plant business. It is possible if you have a little money to get all kinds of interesting things to play with. It’s a struggle.
But it was a pleasant afternoon and we got along really well. But then we had to cut it short. She had earlier decided that she was going to make the walk down the service road to the train instead of going to the bus. This gave her a short day but the days are generally short now and she wanted to be finished with all of the movement by the time it got dark. I can’t blame her.
Kiss kiss, hug hug and she was gone. I went in the kitchen and made myself some spicy macaroni. I started watching some video about something or other and then about 45 minutes after she left, I got a picture of the train leaving the station without her. Earlier in the day, she told me her plan and I mentioned that I had the whole train schedule on my phone. She didn’t listen and went to her own phone and got the times screwed up. She left with the time that the train would already be back to town instead of the time that it would arrive here.
When she was leaving the first time, she offered me some cash that she had. I sent her money through my card and this is how I get petty cash sometimes. It wasn’t much, just 40 rubles. Enough for one trip to the local store and maybe to get my clothes washed. But now she was back and only had five rubles to her name. She needed one of those 20s back to get home by cab.
I think we understand each other perfectly. She agrees that sometimes she gets very lonely but she also agrees that the both of us are better off in the lives we have. And so It goes…
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