Sunday morning, April 3rd, 2022. Week number 13

It’s about 10:30 in the morning and I am sitting in the kitchen looking at the most beautiful landscape you could possibly see here. Everything is covered in white, the sun is beginning to appear in the sky, it is quiet and nice but for the birds singing and for the moment, I am not in pain.

Breakfast today was one of my favorite soups. I used the blender to grind some peanuts and chickpeas with some pepper, one extremely hot chili, some black pepper and vinegar and mixed it into a soup stocked only with lentils, forest mushrooms and a touch of local spice. Simple as simple can be, I added noodles completely unnecessarily and even wasted more time with toast. Carbs on carbs on carbs. But it was delicious, reasonably healthy, contained absolutely no murder and was an ideal comfort food for a cold wet spring morning.

I cannot see any reason to do much physical labor today. I can’t really do any more Garden building or hauling right now. That will be for later on this week when things dry out a little bit. It’s a good time to do some computer work though. I can work on my catalog a bit and start making things available at least as titles online. I think I should also add a sidebar to this blog. I understand it’s possible but I haven’t mastered its possibilities yet. And maybe some light cleaning. Nothing much and I don’t even need to work very hard at that.

I know it’s really early in the year but I really needed this snow. I needed the extended rest. I’ve been pushing myself unnecessarily hard. Or perhaps I was just working as hard as I could to do something that needed to get done.

This project of mine is not even close to being finished. I’m talking about the setup and doing what I can to make this Garden functional. I still have not put the gutters on the barn roof, I still have not collected water containers to catch the water. I still have not seriously started on putting rain catchers next to my fruit trees. And I still have not completed filling up the raised boxes or even shored them up with a little extra material to stabilize them.

The problem of course is money. I don’t really have any money to play with. I agree that I am investing in my future, both to have a place to be in that I can enjoy and admire and for the potential food collection that I don’t have to go very far to get. Again, my long-term plans are for this place to be as perennial as possible but we’re not going to get there for at least 5 or 10 years. For now, we need cabbages, beans and onions and root vegetables. I’ve got this but it takes time.

Of course it’s not only money. They decided to have a war that throws everything up in the air. Nothing develops, nobody grows, we never get smarter because we just have to massacre each other and destroy our buildings and create building opportunities that people can make a profit from. That is one thing that all of the excitement in the news often forgets. When it is over, whenever it is over, no rebuilding is going to get done without money or credit. The companies that supply the materials are often the ones most involved in the beginning of the war.

I learned this lesson even 20 years ago when I was first making the rounds through Europe. I was in Croatia and there was a war at the time of course but I said that my profession was Stone medicine I was asked why I was not with the other English stonemasons down at the coast. Even before the war was over, profiteering was in full swing and contracts were there to be had.

In the book that I just published of the stories from Western Russia, one of the last pieces is about the supposed reparations paid for the closing of the Norilsk Nickel smelting operation. It seems that almost none of the money that was promised actually went to people who were in need of it and even those foolish enough to buy into building contracts found out that as soon as they were needed, the cost of building supplies had gone up. The building supply company was of course from Moscow as you will find when the rebuilding of Kharkov, Kiev and all of the other cities mercilessly bombed.

People really ought to know better but it doesn’t really matter because we don’t get a choice and we don’t get to vote. If there is an election, the interests of the oil company will be represented by both sides. This was true in the Belarusian elections and it was true in the American elections.

I believe I made my point of view quite clear. If we don’t like this war and we don’t like Vladimir Putin, we could fight him collectively by something other than posting really nasty thoughts on the social networks. Somebody should tell people that protests sometimes have more to do with not purchasing products or spending money that goes to the people in question more than it does making signs, electronic or physical.

If you don’t like the Russians, get out of the oil business. In fact, if you don’t like the world as it is globalized to the point of cancer, stop spending money on factory goods. And even if you are completely selfish and believe you have the right to take care of yourself first, try only spending your money locally and see what happens to the community you live in. People complain a lot about quality of life and having no opportunities. Try investing in your own towns and see what happens to the amount of opportunities you have.

Of course you can also just turn off the internet for a while. I kind of did that yesterday. I didn’t need the news or find anything out of any importance. I did some work on my computer to make the internet a little more stable. I did some work on my own self too to make myself more stable. I know I’m not supposed to work on Saturdays but I didn’t mind this. It seemed an intelligent thing to do and something that would bring a bit more peace to my life.

It’s a funny thing about the internet right now. People go on there because they’re afraid of not knowing what’s going to happen. But then all the news is just fear teasers to keep them crazy. It’s another one of those psychotic cycles that we all follow. It’s like sugar addiction. The more you eat it, the more you want to eat it and the more you try to get away from it, the more you need it. Insanity, right?

I’m just in a building year. I have thoughts sometimes about how to recover my money but I don’t really believe in them. I don’t really believe in anything anymore. I don’t believe there’s any goodness in the world. I don’t believe anybody really has any heart anymore. I believe that everybody is suffering and alone these days and the only people who are not, are the ones who get wrecked on other people’s money.

I didn’t get wrecked this weekend but I thought about it. When I went to the store on my way back from town, I considered buying a couple of bottles of vodka and getting wrecked. I also let my mind play with the idea of having beer available at the end of the day. Most adults would think this is being normal. But I didn’t. I just didn’t.

One time in town, a girl asked me how I managed to quit drinking and meat and sugar. I guess she was someone who made her money off of other people’s addictions and her own. She was very interested in the process of my letting things go.

What I told her and what is still true is that my ability to say no started when I realized that I really did not want to say yes. Saying yes to a personal indulgence never really led to any satisfaction. Not momentarily, not in the process of imbibing and certainly not in the recovery period afterwards. I recognized that I was not receiving any happiness from any of it. In fact, it was just making me more miserable than I already was.

Perhaps the problem is that this is a rational thought. Recognizing that something that you do in theory for happiness that in fact doesn’t deliver happiness is a rational thought that a lot of people just don’t allow themselves to have. Usually people just lump this thought with all of the other thoughts they are trying to get out of their mind but never really do. It just comes back, doesn’t it?

Realizing that none of these things that I was doing was bringing me any happiness, I started looking for alternatives that were at least cheaper. That was the first thing that came to my mind. How much does it cost to get a ball of vodka? Even though it’s not very expensive, about $3 right now for a half a liter, I wondered what life would be like if I stopped spending all of those $3 fixes.

Basically the urge would hit me about 5:00. I wanted to get wrecked. Right there at 5:00, just about the moment that everybody in the world gets out of work, my mind goes with all of them and I just wanted to get wrecked. But then I remembered that I didn’t really want this. I remembered that it didn’t make me happy to do this and that I didn’t really want to do it. The urge was there but I knew from experience and memory that it was not what I wanted. I had the right to as an adult. I had the right to do what I wanted. But I also had the right not to do something if I wanted to.

The thought process went something like this:

Let’s go pick up some chicken and a bottle of vodka. Or maybe a pizza and a bottle of vodka. No. No, I don’t want to get drunk. Would you like to have some beer? No, I don’t want to drink alcohol. It’s not going to do anything for me and running away from my problems is not going to solve them. But it’s relief from the pain? No, it’s not relief from the pain. It’s just a moment’s anesthetic and the pain remains. Okay, no vodka. Let’s go kill a bird. No. I don’t want to kill anything. I don’t want the blood, I don’t want the suffering and I don’t want the paranoia. But you will relax. No, I won’t relax. I’ll just grow numb and stupid because my body doesn’t really want this food in it. Okay, let’s go for the pizza. No, I don’t want to spend the money to have a pizza delivered and I don’t want to waste the effort to pick one up myself. Pizza is fresh bread and leftovers. If I really, really want bread, I can buy some bread or I can make it myself.

And this is how I got out of it. I started baking bread so I wouldn’t have to buy any pizza. And I started doing my own cooking and trying to make really tasty vegetarian dishes so that I didn’t need to buy a lot of food. And as for alcohol, I just didn’t really want it. I mean, if I’m really crazy for something sweet, fruit is good and raisins are extremely sweet. A few nuts and raisins are the best dessert I have in the world.

I did this because I allowed my head to clear a little bit. And the more I did this, the clearer my head was. The more clear my head was, the less I cared about getting wrecked. The last time I wasted worrying about getting wrecked, the more time I had for other things. It wasn’t a downward cycle, it was an upward cycle. It wasn’t about wrecking myself, it was about self-improvement.

I don’t know what my life would be like if I was not connected to such hideous people. Just want to think I get rid of the local criminals, I get stolen from by International criminals.

The truth is right now that I have a tremendous amount of physical labor to do. Nobody’s making me do this but I want to do it and I am doing it. I’m doing it for any number of reasons. Some of it is ego gratification. I am sort of proud to be able to do what I’m doing right now. But a lot of it is just practicing self-sufficiency.

There are a million things that I would love to do. These are not idle dreams and I promise you that absolutely none of my dreams include laying on a beach somewhere and drinking alcohol with an umbrella sticking out of the glass. I don’t dream of fancy restaurants or hotels. I don’t dream about piles of food being handed to me by other people. I do not dream of being a king and being served by placating idiots groveling at my feet. I just dream of participating in really beautiful projects and making really beautiful things from my own imagination.

And no matter how much it hurts, and it really hurts, I just don’t have these stupid money wasting pedestrian travel vacation dreams. I don’t dream about a car and I don’t dream about being a millionaire. I just dream about existing in a functional society that does really beautiful things.

***

Well that was interesting. I don’t know if anything is ever going to become of any of this but we can now consider the book Being Had as published on Amazon. More information as it becomes available. It might take a couple of days or it might take a couple of hours. I don’t know if any of this is ever going to mean anything. Anyway, back to work.

***

It’s about a quarter to 7:00 in the evening and I’m on the floor in the warm room. Today was yet another day where I thought I would be industrious but I wasn’t. Within some period of time, the book will be online. And then I’ll make a note of it and try to do something. Maybe.

I have no idea why all this has been so difficult for me. I want to throw around psychological terms like manic depressive but I’m not really sure that’s what it is. I’m just sick of the internet. I’m sick of being on the internet and I’m sick of talking on the internet. I’m sick of trying to be a good person and I’m sick of trying to be someone who tells people the truth. I’m tired of talking to myself and I’m tired of being ignored and I’m tired of being cheated and lied to and stolen from. I’m tired of this.

I think there’s a line where the truth becomes a lie despite the fact that it’s still true. I think there’s some element of heart that must exist when someone speaks the truth and if that element is missing, it’s hard to believe it anymore.

This has been going on for 20 years. I am sick of it. Getting Being Had online again only brings back how miserable it was trying to get that job done. So many hours were spent just to have everything I did get washed away.

I mean, I remember during the big third elections for the Belarusian presidency. It was a big deal at the time that I was here and publishing my little online newspaper. I started all that to try to get people to read my book and My Hope was that somebody would pay attention and think it was interesting. People did. Quite a few people from the press called me and my opinions got seconded in their writing. We even had visitors who were into politics come around. I met a lot of people and learned more than a few things about the way things are going on. And then nothing.

I don’t know really what I was expecting but at the time, I felt I was doing a good thing. I felt I was bringing some sense of justice to a part of the world that was just reopening. I honestly thought I was helping.

All of this thinking by the way was the same for the play that I wrote for the local theater. In my mind, the original piece was simply there as a work of art to inspire some conversation. In my mind, people needed to have new thoughts and new ideas and I wanted to be in the conversation. I didn’t want to be a dictator or become a rich man and own a bunch of slaves. I just wanted to be a voice in the conversation or even the catalyst for conversation. I didn’t know I was going to end up getting swept under the rug by everybody on both sides.

When I saw a Hollywood movie featuring a guy who had lost his legs and a group of aliens with four fingers, I got a little angry but I was also kind of proud. I understood that my idea had gotten stolen. I just didn’t really understand why they couldn’t just take my script and think about making it.

And when people were interested in making some of my films, I never understood where the gold button was. Everything got interesting and people wanted to throw in with them but then nothing ever happened and they just went cold again.

It’s hard you know to keep trying. It’s really hard when you never get anything for the work that you do. Not recognition and certainly not money. And then it gets weird when you stand up and say to people that you really do need some money and that despite people reading you and making use of your stuff, you got to buy food and pay rent and then they just say you’re insincere because you’ve asked for money.

I just don’t get it. I just don’t get what the subtitle is underneath me. I don’t get why I have to be so abused. 

I’m not even talking about the extended situation with all of these sanctions. I’m getting killed by them too. And believe me, there are no ngos, no governments, no under the table checks and absolutely nothing coming from friends or family anywhere paying for my life. And even if I didn’t worry about that, I lost all my savings that I worked for. I was a teacher here for 20 years and all of that money is now under American Lock and key because they put sanctions unilaterally on the country and not a single human being ever recognized any of my work. No one ever recognized anything I ever did despite the fact that it was all pro-democracy, pro fairness and pro honesty.

You take a look at that book Being Had and you’ll see mention of some people in the American embassy. I promise you, The Americans have never lifted a finger to help me in any way. Even when I was sitting in the hospital, they wouldn’t give me the slightest accommodation towards getting my passport renewed. Not one single finger lifted to help. Not through Poland, not through any of my work and not even when I kind of helped get Noviya Gazetta the Nobel Prize. 

That Nobel Prize by the way was for telling the truth, working for justice and trying to say the right thing so as to help the world become a better place to live in.

I do not claim to have all the answers. I don’t claim to be deeply connected and I don’t have any sort of superhero or super spy resume behind me. I just came out to try something new. I just started living in my grandfather’s hometown and did what I could to get it by. I never said I was Superman. I just said I was a writer and that I told the truth. You’d think I would have caught a break somewhere along the line.

***

ok, so what does this catalogue look like? Here is a brief rundown of everything I can claim as being original work.

In addition to all this, there are also the essays that I wrote for green 2021. These are on several different topics including activism, desertification, permaculture, ecotec and other ecology related subjects. I’ve thought about gathering them into a volume and if so, you could  consider that part of this here. There was also another blog and several websites that had original writing material. And of course there’s an English teaching method which kind of paid for my life for about 2 decades.

***

That’s about it for today. I wouldn’t count today as being a very successful day. I certainly had bigger ambitions when the day started than what I actually did. But I guess that’s the way life is when it’s snowing in early April and I don’t really have anything physical to do with myself. Let’s see what tomorrow looks like. Maybe something good will actually happen.