Friday, June 3rd 2022

I feel good. Maybe not James Brown good but good. Last night at about 2:00 in the morning something amazing happened. Get your mind out of the gutter. Nobody’s talking about sex. But last night something really good happened in my financial life that perhaps changed all my Outlook. Last night, a tiny door opened and made things much, much better.

Oh oh, I feel the cries of hypocrisy rising. Hey Mr Goodman, I thought you were the no money guy. I thought you were the guy who said that money was the root of all evil and you didn’t like to be grabbing around in the roots if you didn’t have to. True. Very, very true.

I do not believe myself to be a hypocrite for acknowledging that the world runs on money. I’m simply an advocate of diminishing the use of money as a tool of enslavement or in worst case scenarios, a tool of torture. I have personally experienced both, in situations where the money flowed through my hands rather than someone else’s, I have always prided myself in not abusing power. I have been aware of what it feels like to have someone believe they have power over you and abuse it. I have done my absolute very best never to be that guy.

Actually, it is very much my philosophy that I really want nothing to do with sadomasochism at all. I don’t find it interesting sexually and I don’t find it interesting economically. My view of interaction with people is either we meet eye to eye, which is my absolute preference, or you’d be better off letting me make the decisions. If you listen to me, and this means either in a partnership or as a decision maker, we’re all going to be happy and warm and together and probably successful. If you ask me to follow you, it ain’t going to happen because it ain’t going to work.

Probably, if I had to boil down the 3 million words or so that I’ve written in the last two and a half years of public service, trying to find economic and social parity, a genuine classless society or at least a society run on math science and reason with an understanding that equality amongst all people is necessary would be the key. 

Let’s understand each other though. There are vast differences in talent and ability. There are people who are capable of much more work than others. Certainly, there are those with a talent to lead and those who are very talented at following. We’re not talking about personal differences. What I’m talking about is respect. I’m talking about respect for our fellow man regardless of his or her abilities. What I’m talking about is respecting nature. What I’m talking about is respecting our habitat and our planet and keeping an eye on sustainability and realizing that we are not the be all and end all of life on Earth and that this generation does not need to be the last that ever exists. We do not need to eat every resource available to us just because it’s exciting to get to it.

This all being said, I’m not rich. I don’t ever remember being rich. What I do remember is having my family be a bunch of assholes to me and right now one of those assholes is enjoying being an economic bully. It is illegal. What he is doing are crimes. What he is doing should have him in jail. I want this person to leave my life forever and ever. But it’s not a matter of vengeance or anger on my part. This is not an emotional issue. It’s just physical, mental, emotional and economic abuse being practiced on me unnecessarily by a rancid little rat. And this during a Time when we are getting economically bullied by the West and by Russia and are forced to stare at human slaughter in our neighboring state. And in a time of absolute economic catastrophe as if we have nothing better to do as a species then play these stupid games with each other for money rather than paying attention to writing our wrongs and fixing our house.

I don’t really want to say anything bad about anybody but I do want to use one metaphor that might be misunderstood. When I was living with my ex-girlfriend, I’m much more normal situation than you might imagine. Even banal if you’d like to know the truth. There was a conversation that I wanted to have with her about something that I called basic form. I was talking about the way we should have kept our apartment and how we should act towards it. The apartment was our habitat and it should have been kept in a particular order. This by the way also included how we treated each other.

What happened simply was that she did not want to have the conversation. Her idea of the world was that we were all doing what we wanted to do and whatever garbage or problems happened were somebody else’s. She was entitled, as they say. Not to say that she didn’t have massive positives or that I am ashamed of our time or of her in any way. I’m just saying that we missed the boat on our moment. We never did have that conversation or reach that agreement or understanding. And of course, the world broke because of it.

In thinking about my situation with my family, in two separate situations I requested a simple 5-minute conversation to figure out where we stood. I tried my best to be a good person in all of this but, let’s speak frankly here, he was the same type of selfish bitch. Same entitlement. Same idiot selfishness. He said that we were in a war for resources. I say that he is a parasite the world can live without.

It is this inability to communicate that has 13 million displaced ukrainians. On a positive and sentimental note, these are the same people who would otherwise be hated pariahs when showing up on foreign soils but now are greeted with open arms and government grants. Nice. Fine. They are white. Good for them. 

But it’s an unnecessary waste of resources. The war is an unnecessary waste of resources. The propaganda War on the political war and the sanctions and all of the emotions spent either in favor or against this massive cluster fuck is all an unnecessary waste of resources.

I hope I’ve made myself reasonably clear.

Anyway, we had blinni this morning. Blinny and some local tea. My ex partner has a delicate hand these days. And these were not simple flower bliny, these were made with chickpea flour and just the slightest hint of linseed to help hold them together. Tasty with no help whatsoever and served with fresh greens. Why not? Who could argue?

I’ve got a bit of a schedule that starts in about 1 hour. My ex partner is heading out the door. I am back in my riding clothes and feeling about as good as I can feel. 

I am not a young man anymore. I’ve lost some things that are never going to come back again. I am not jealous of young people. I’m not jealous of people who have more time than me or have more money than me or have more opportunities. I’m a little jealous of people who come from sane families. I’m a bit jealous of people who have reasonable friends who have the capacity to communicate with each other. I’m jealous of people who have reasonable lives and reasonable friends and live in reasonable situations. But I’m not jealous of any physical lackings I may have acquired.

I just wish the world had a bit more common sense. I just wish people were a little more understanding of their genuine obligations. I wish the world was not teaching everybody to be lazy and stupid and wasteful just to keep an economy going that has ruined the planet.

You know it’s funny in a miserably ironic sort of way but a friend of mine foresaw the future 20 years ago. He was a vegan by the way. I was not. I was a mild practitioner of vegetarianism from time to time but I could just as easily go back to eating meat.

I was in New York City and riding bikes at this time. I even worked helping to deliver vegan newspapers to various health food stores by bike. It was a job I had. I even wrote an article for them I believe. I was with them, I listened to them speak but I didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel it until much, much, much later in life. I didn’t feel it until it was really too late and I had already been bombed.

What my friend said was that the day that the Chinese discover meat and McDonald’s is the day the world comes to an end. He was absolutely correct. The day globalism started to take over, the day the corporations got the right to invade the planet in search of their profits was the day there was no longer any hope for ecological possibilities to exist. The day we decided that distant transportation of goods for profit and excessive garbage from packaging was acceptable because it made money for the corporations was The Day the Earth died. The day we quit accepting ourselves locally and living locally and supporting each other locally was the day that cancer was born.

Sometimes you don’t even know when someone is saying something truly profound. He was right. I don’t know. Maybe the only thing I can possibly hope for from any of these 3 million words is that maybe somebody will look back somewhere and say that I was right and maybe they should have listened to me for a minute or two. If they had listened to me, things would have been much, much, much better.

***

Well, that was a lot.

Today or at least this morning has gone absolutely beautifully. Everything that needed to get done got done. I was on time for the train and the road was reasonable enough to ride on. I’ve done all the shopping I need to do. I am prepared for my day off and technically, a bit of a holiday. And I feel genuinely positive. Today is a great day.

As far as details go, that was really nothing special. I had some stops I needed to make along the way and I needed to be reasonably on time and I was. I don’t know what else to say. Today was the day when everything functioned.

I guess I could make a shout out to BelarusBank. One of their managers personally helped me through the issue of trading in an old card for a new one. Really, she was absolutely on top of her game and did everything so professionally that all I could do was smile. Here I am bitching and moaning about quality of life that people demonstrate and right in front of my face, the national Bank just rips the door open of professionalism. Thank you very much. I very much appreciate it.

One of the main stops along the way was to the Jewish community. I have a friend there and I got a chance to go in and talk with him. As far as a name, he prefers to be known as a member of the Jewish community. Other than this, all I can say is that he is a wonderful friend and has been for 20 years and that he is an extremely religious man. He’s a businessman. Do not make the slightest doubt about this. He’s a businessman and he is proud of his acumen and proud of the pile he sits on. But he is a great guy. I cannot not say that and we have had our differences.

One of the things we talked about was this week’s Torah portion, Bamidbar. The word means desert and this week’s portion begins the book of Numbers. It’s called The Book of Numbers because it begins with a census of all the children of Israel. They were in their second year in the desert and it was time to get organized. The men had to join the army from 21 to 50 and all of the heads of the tribes and all of the families had to be organized and ready for what may come for life in the desert.

Many years ago, I built a website for the Jewish community here. It was actually more of a religious site than anything. I don’t think anybody complained for a while until it kind of got out that I was writing the Torah commentaries. In theory I was supposed to be listening to the rabbi but without being insulting, I could never understand a word he was saying. So I went at it alone, did it respectfully, borrowed elements from other commentaries from other rabbis who were online and everything got along fine. Well, until they figured out that I was the one writing the Torah commentaries and that was the end of my job. No hard feelings and truthfully, it was kind of fun.

Today, I asked my friend if he would take over and tell me something about this week’s Torah portion. We opened up the Dictaphone and he just let it rip. I’m going to do what I can to get his words on paper as much as I can verbatim. Of course, this is a much different take on things than mine is. I’m always extremely secular. But, sometimes new is good and sometimes it’s best to let your friends drive.

The weekly portion of Bamidbar always falls before the festival of Shavuot, the festival celebrating when the Jewish people received the Torah.

In Israel, because of the way the festival fell this year, they had bamidbar last week but we are doing it this week. Our sages explain that the reason we have this portion before Shavuot is to teach a person that if they want to understand and learn and appreciate the Torah, they have to make themselves as if they are in the desert. And again, the word Bamidbar means the desert.

When a person is in the desert, there’s only one thing that is important and this is where he is going to get his next cup of water. You can have gold in the desert but if you don’t have water, you are worth nothing.

There is a story about the famous Baron Rothschild who starved to death despite his millions. He accidentally locked himself in his vault while counting his money and died never having escaped. He wrote on the walls of the vault in his own blood “I, Baron Rothschild, died of hunger.”

He didn’t have what was important.

The Torah has always been symbolic with water. Like it says in the proverbs, anyone who is thirsty, go to the water. And in this case they are talking about the knowledge in the Torah.

They say that the Torah is like a well, no matter how much you take out of it, the water keeps coming back.

One point to remember is that you cannot learn Torah simply at face value by the words written on the page. The Torah is something that the more you dig into it, the more ways there are to learn.

One very important rule to succeed in Torah study is what is said, you should eat bread with salt, drink water from the well or from the local River and you should sleep on the floor. This is the way of learning Torah.

In Jewish life, there are always two ways for a Torah sage to go. There are those who always try to go to the highest level, to carry themselves like kings. These people don’t believe in bread and salt or well water or floor sleeping. How can this be the way of Torah, they ask? It’s not fancy enough. It’s not beautiful enough. It doesn’t benefit my station.

On the other hand, they say that somebody who is used to living humbly does not say that they need an expensive lifestyle. For the humble person, a little bread and salt is enough. A little well water is just fine. And a good floor to sleep on it’s probably good for your back.

This person will never fail to learn due to financial capabilities. This person who values the basic minimum is the one who will stay with the study and not make excuses. The person who is not fussy is the one who can keep his head in the game and learn well.

So, this Torah portion is always read before the festival of Shavuot and it is a reminder that study of the Torah is life.

Or in other words, to remain grounded, humble and diligent is the correct way.

You have to appreciate when a learned man addresses a lesson that so perfectly fits the student of the day. I’m not just saying this because I do like bread and salt, I do drink my water from a well and I absolutely love to sleep on the floor. I agree wholeheartedly in principle that the reason I do read the Torah every week is simply my due diligence. I mean, if I am going to identify as Jewish and I am going to happily show the world the door come Friday night, it is of more than reasonable importance that I do my job. So, I read Torah.

***

Anyway, I guess I’m going to close up shop for the week. I’m getting kind of hungry.

Looking back, there was a lot of life in this week. Certainly there were some slow boring times and for sure, I would not say that there was that much excitement. But what was the best part of this week is that everything started to grow. Everything here came alive this week. There was some rain and some sun and everything growing on this little piece of land I have decided to jump up and scream. Everything that was alive gave that mighty Thoreau Yelp, please with itself in its existence and beauty.

The arrival of the wildflowers suddenly changed my whole perspective. I guess I had forgotten when I first started to really love this place. This year there are all kinds of construction. But it’s not pointless. It’s just a place for more things to live and grow.

And here by the end of the week, even a little moment of economic freedom. Nothing dangerous. I’m not rich. But just a moment of a tiny bit of rational security. Not even a gift, it was mine all along.

And then I had a nice visit with my ex partner. I can’t argue with that. We got along very well and even the food was amazing and tasty. I didn’t really sleep well. I didn’t really sleep at all. But it didn’t seem to matter. I was unbelievably happy and I felt as comfortable as I have felt in a long long time.

And even today with a brief visit to the Jewish community and a few minutes discussion of Torah was not bad at all. It was kind. It was kind and respectful and meaningful perhaps. Just another moment of life.

There are those of us, and there are a lot of them, who know nothing but money. They only think of the power that comes with having money and they never stop and think or even ask themselves if what they dream of is even possible to achieve. They also never ask themselves if they are really happy in the moments when they get what they want. I could say that it’s never enough. We have all heard that phrase a million times. We all understand about chasing dragons and looking for some panacea that never shows its face. In this we never learn.

I don’t think the answer really lies in studying Torah anymore than I believe the answer lies in chasing money. I don’t think the answer lies in chasing anything. I think the answer lies in finding a place, making it your home and doing everything you can to keep it going.

But even this gets distorted. When most people think of keeping their home going, even there, they never think of anything except the money. When I think of my relative, I can call him a parasite and know that I am absolutely accurate in my assessment but at the same time, I’m sure that just keeping his house going is a ridiculous amount of money. I’m sure leaving his lifestyle is just ridiculous in how much financial pressure he walks around with. No wonder he spent years with his tongue firmly out My Father’s ass.

I don’t really have that. I don’t have a house that beats me up financially. I agree I have spent some money this year on some water barrels to save rainwater. This sunday, I truly hope, we’re finally going to put some gutters on my barn roof and that will allow me to collect even another thousand liters of water. Bolstering us against the next few months of drought that I know are coming.

But these barrels really didn’t cost very much money. And however we cobble together the eventual gutters, they are not going to be earth-shattering money. When I was with my ex partner, we talked about changing the windows to something a bit more modern. Maybe pushing in a little bit more insulation to make the winter more palatable. That might cost some money. I even have an idea in the back of my head about building out the barn and turning it into a greenhouse or a separate place where someone can crash. More money. More materials.

I agree that I did spend five or six weeks in the hospital and then the same amount of time crashing in my ex partner’s apartment. I cannot say that I made it through the entire winter. But I managed to get back here right in the middle of the coldest part of it and I have been here the entire time since february, I think. I didn’t die. I didn’t die and I didn’t get sick and I managed to do everything I needed to do to make this place okay to live in. In fact, I enjoyed it.

And then there was all the construction, all of the box building, all of the hauling of materials to fill the boxes. It was all just labor. It was an extremely limited investment. Business-wise, this is the worst year I have ever had since I have been doing my own accounting but my losses are almost insignificant. I didn’t waste any money. I didn’t waste my time and I didn’t waste my money. And everything is fine and the place is just beautiful just the way it is.

The only argument about money in my life right now is that what happened wasn’t fair. The arguments are not on me or who I am or who anybody is really. I just wanted some fairness and everyone else seems to think that war is the only possible way to get along. This is how my chicken neighbors think. This is how the ex-girlfriends think. This is how my family thinks. This is what they want us to think. Everyone’s got to go to war.

I chose a different road. I chose the path less chosen. I chose the path that was not about how much money I made or how much I could spend. I chose nature and I’m happier for it.