Wednesday, June 20th 2022
I like how this guy thinks.
So today is day 3 of “take it easy and be good to yourself” week. As you can imagine, I feel pretty good. Quite a bit of tension has gone out of me. A lot of pain has also left. I feel relaxed and easy. I even played a little guitar last night. I feel like I have been fighting all year. Well, it seems the fight has stopped in favor of a self-sponsored hospital stay. I say, it’s exactly what the doctor ordered or would have if I had a doctor who thought like me.
The healing process is not perfect but moving. A difference can be seen and felt. It’s funny what happens to your brain when the pain goes away. Usually, when things are good for a day or two I start doing more and flying into action. And this week, I’m just not letting myself do that and when the pain goes away, it just makes it that much more pleasant to take it easy.
I’m wondering though if there’s anything truly to worry about right now. My conversation with the main doctor in Minsk yesterday sort of put my mind at ease in a way. This particular week or even 2 weeks where I am putting myself on minimal movement is a perfect time for them to be ignoring me. Overall, they definitely went out of their way to slow down my process. I know who is responsible for this and really, they need to be attended by reasonable powers. Unfortunately in my experience, there are no such things as reasonable powers anymore. There’s no such thing as checks or balances in a conservative States anymore. This is true here, this is obviously true in Russia and I know for a fact that this is true in Florida in the United States. Everywhere where the conservatives have a serious stronghold, you have no rights. Something you can chew on all by yourself. Chew happily because there’s nothing you can do about anything.
The latest complaint against me is that I just don’t party here. There doesn’t seem to be any get-togethers to get wasted at or that mean anything. There are no love fests, no trips to fun places just for the getaway and no fun expensive restaurant cheat meals that just allow me to revel in my “not give a fuckedness”. There’s just no decadent excess to look forward to as a present for being a good sheep. How can anybody like such a thing?
I say fair enough. There are no wasteful moments where a whole bunch of money simply goes away so that I can wake up feeling sick and go right back to slavery. I don’t have those moments unfortunately. Of course, you could say but having fresh food available to me every single day makes her kind of a party. You could say that my ability to hang back and enjoy myself without working too hard for extended periods of time whenever I want it or need it could be considered kind of partyish. One could say simply that not particularly needing to pay lavish bills anymore might give someone a sense of freedom. This is not exactly a Berlin cycle club with a prominent DJ, but if absence of pain is happiness, I should charge admission.
We should actually think about this a bit. Which is better, an explosive moment or a slow easy release? We can put this to the test.
Food. Would you prefer to have an explosive fast moment of eating, kind of like when you feed your dog or would you prefer a two or three hour sit-down with everything spread out in front of you on the table?
Money. Would you prefer a lottery win and suddenly find yourself in a brand new life overnight or would you rather have a slow steady but more than profitable income that allows you to live very well for a very long period of time?
Sex. 10 minutes with a hooker because you really needed it and then she says thanks and leaves or a little something beautiful everyday just because it’s there?
I’m thinking number two works for me pretty much every time. I think the same thing could be said for work or creative projects. Do you want to dive in for one all day orgy of masochism or would you like to take a few brush strokes everyday just to make sure that it’s perfect?
This is rabbit and hare territory. I’m not exactly sure how that parable went but I think it had something to do with bragging and jealousy. The rabbit was rather insulting to the turtle. The rabbit kept saying “nah nah nah, I’m so fast and you’re so slow, I’m so young and you’re so old, I’m so free and you’re so tired, nah nah nah, look at me, look at me!”
I’m pretty sure that this dialogue was not in the original story but I’m just riffing.
But then the rabbit kind of blows up. No stamina. It ran a Sprint and then feeling like it was completely secure, decided to take a nap because, hey, I’m the greatest thing in the world and I have nothing to worry about. And then the turtle one the race and got the prize money and the rabbit went into receivership, his family left him, he started drinking excessively and then caught a horrible disease from a crack whore. Again, I’m not really sure that was a part of the original parable but you take things as they come out here in Paradise.
Extrapolating this thought out however, we do seem to have a world that asks us to be rabbits rather than turtles. We are told that fast and exciting is better. Facebook connected us but then Instagram made it easier. We don’t need the memes really, we just need the pictures. And now we have tick tock saying that we don’t even really need content that isn’t as fast as your attention span is short. Of course taking a few steps back from this picture, we went from actually having lives to having entertainment on a tiny screen that we hold in our hand and spend all of our money on. We don’t really have friends, we just have posts.
Did we go too fast?
I was thinking about the history of my relationship with my neighbors. My God they just could not wait to make a scandal, could they? And finding themselves in the midst of something as oh so interesting as making a fight with their American neighbor, I wonder exactly what kind of happiness they have brought themselves.
For example, I noticed that every time they believe that they are near me, either on the street in front of my house or if they have some visual contact with me, they change. They become louder. They accentuate the noise they make. They become very self-conscious one way or another. If they are politically negative, which is their preference, they become louder and truly try to show that they are having fun. I understand this. They are bored with their lives and are angry at me for not providing them with entertainment. They expect me to be there for entertainment for some reason having to do with smarmy disgusting entitlement or something like that.
To me however, it’s more of an indication that they do not have lives of their own. If they actually had something interesting to do, I would not even be a blip on their radar. Also, if they genuinely had lives that they enjoyed, their doors would have been open at the beginning. They would not have invited anything horrible into their lives for fear they would destroy what they have. Nobody goes directly to misery unless that is all they have to sell.
My first thought is to blame Christianity but that would be preaching to the choir, right?
My second thought is meat. This would also be preaching to the choir because nobody I’m talking about has the attention span to do anything but look at 3 million words of thought and do anything but shake their head, dismiss any attachment to reality and head right back into their shit holes. Better the misery that you know?
My point is that we are being shoved into a mold that doesn’t really fit us. We are asked to live lives that do not really suit us. We are asked to live lives of pain and to admire and cheer and wait for pain. We communicate through pain. People don’t even know we are there unless we are causing them pain. And in my case in my relationship to my neighbors, they laugh at me for my lack of power to cause them pain. At least how they perceive this.
Let’s talk about this as well. I’m going to give you three examples and you tell me which one you would genuinely prefer. I’ll use the same criteria as the last time I brought this up.
Food. Would you prefer to eat something that gives you good energy or something that gives you bloating, abdominal cramps and leads to diabetes and cancer?
Money. Would you prefer something that leads to personal security and ease of mind or just enough to keep you starving all the time?
Sex. With love or without Love? I’m not talking about pity or a drug addict’s understanding of your emotional whims and needs. I’m talking about actual vested interest caring or someone who is just out for what they can get.
I used to play this game all the time with my students. At that time, it was always about doing homework and giving quality work to get quality results. The stories used to be the same thing.
Your mother is sick and requires a doctor. You go to the hospital and there are two doctors. The first one comes as quickly as they can, speaks with a friendly and professional manner, asks good questions that give good scientific answers as to the situation. They make a good analysis and immediately make sure that the ball gets rolling towards making your mother as comfortable as possible and doing as much good as possible to solve her problem. The second doctor is out in the court or playing with their telephone while your mother is screaming in pain. They finally come in, obviously they would rather be somewhere else, they take a cursory look at your mom, say something to placate you and then walk away to do other things. Which doctor would you rather have?
This second one would go to a girl usually.
You’re in a park enjoying the sunny day when suddenly three alcoholic bandits start harassing you and touching you. You scream and notice that only 100 m away are two policemen. The first policeman sprints over to the scene screaming at the bandits to get control over the situation. Immediately separates you from danger and make sure that the bandits are taken into custody. The second bandit is staring at his telephone. He hears you calling but the noise is annoying to him. He thinks to himself that you’ll be okay, life is like that sometimes. He understands he has some kind of duty to do but he’ll get to it when he’s finished with his game.
A young adolescent boy would probably get a story like this. You have two girlfriends or two girls that you know that you would like to be your girlfriend. The first one enjoys hanging out with you. After school or on weekends, she likes making plans to hang out together. She does things that you want to do and suggests things that she would like to do that you might like. She’s always bright and funny, listens when you talk, worries about you but doesn’t drive you crazy and basically makes you happy that she’s around. The second girl keeps telling you how terrible you are, makes it clear that her mood can be changed with presents, does not care how much money anything costs and gives you all of her problems to solve.
Which do you like, number one or number two?
For this particular set, some students get it and some students need one or two more stories.
You are the director of a big company and you have two employees. The first one does all of their work on time and in a professional manner. If you give them something to do, they do it. When they have problems with the work, they ask questions and what you tell them they hear and they care a great deal that everything comes out well. The second one shows up late to work, would rather be somewhere else, does some percentage of the work required of them and does nothing but bother the other employees for attention and create scandals in the workplace.
And finally, you’re an English teacher and you have two students. The first one actually does the work to be a better English speaker and the other one is you.
I don’t know. I seem to live my life with an incredible amount of number twos. Number two by the way is a euphemism for shit if I remember correctly.
Why have we allowed ourselves to be the bad people? Why have we allowed ourselves to become so selfish and lazy? When did we lose our vested interest? When did we lose our pragmatic understanding of what we need to do to live? When did we become such active game players? When did we decide that the game was all that mattered? When did we all become drug addicts?
My first answer is to blame Christianity unfortunately. Sorry about that. I’m just not Christian. However,
Who said that religion is the opiate of the masses?
The answer is Karl Marx. And Karl Marx, other than being the least funny of the Marx Brothers, also came to the conclusion that capitalism was the worst thing that ever happened to the planet. Something about causing misery and slavery via the exploitation of the efforts of the many for the pleasures of a few.
Anyway, no matter how much any of this makes sense, I’m still just a dog barking in the wind. It doesn’t really matter what I know or what I think or my ability to express myself. It doesn’t really matter how much truth I actually know. It just doesn’t matter generally. People are already hooked, they are already in their cages and they are already gone. We have already been inoculated. We have already been shown that all roads lead to the arena.
Welcome to Rome my brothers and sisters. All roads lead to Rome and when in Rome, we do like the Romans.
Anyway, my thinking is that I’m going to do some watering late in the afternoon today. The plants probably could use some water here in the morning. Maybe I’ll go with that instead. I don’t know. I have to think about it a bit. The only thing I do know is that I’m going to continue taking it easy for the rest of the week except for absolute minimum efforts. I just have to stay off my feet as much as I can. I got to give myself a chance to heal and banging around and working is not going to do anybody any good.
***
1:20 on a very peaceful and warm day. I’m just sitting in the office accomplishing nothing. I’m not quite sure whether there’s something wrong with me or not or whether I just don’t care or wish to fight anymore. Who is to say?
Breakfast was pretty easy. I still had some dough left over from yesterday’s bread and it was even tastier this morning. I had it with some tea and some fresh vegetables. I just pulled up an entire salad plant and had my last tomato and two cucumbers. I’m sure there are more cucumbers out there but I haven’t looked in a couple of days. I should definitely do that a little later.
But checking my cabinets, I saw that I was light on three basic Staples. I didn’t have any buckwheat, pearled barley or oatmeal. I eat these all the time because basically, you don’t even need to cook them. The barley and the buckwheat can be soaked and is ready to eat in a couple of hours and the oatmeal can just have water added to it and it’s ready in about 5 or 10 minutes. I like fast food. Sue me.
I called Lena in the morning and she was okay getting my call. She came over within about 40 minutes and picked up a bag and some money. It wasn’t a lot of money and I guaranteed her a 10 spot for making the run to the store. I also asked for some tomatoes if they had any but they didn’t.
I asked her what the story was about 2 weeks ago. And basically, she had come on a Friday instead of a Thursday to help clean up. She did some washing for me as well, clothing, but when she was late bringing it back in the afternoon, I called her on the phone and I thought we agreed that she would bring it by on Sunday. The next morning, she came by and called my name but sorry, I just don’t bother with people on Saturday. There is no business that will be done here in this house and no money will be spent. Other than that, there isn’t about a 99% doubt ratio that there would be any other reason to be bothered.
So she just slung my wet clothes over the fence and went home. A bit later in the day I found the clothing there and walked him over to the line and they sat there drying and till after sundown when I brought them inside. No working please on Saturday. Use your translator to translate to any form of communication that goes into your head. No working on Saturday.
The next week she did not come at all. I think I tried to call a few times but she never answered her phone. Why did this happen? Was she offended about our situation? Did she think I would get up and burst into action for her call on saturday? Was our conversation not clear enough about not bringing the clothing back until Sunday? Who knows the mysteries that go inside some people’s heads. I didn’t use women right there but I was thinking it.
Today she came over and did this store run for me without problem. When we were talking, all was friendly and I asked her what the situation was the previous week. She said something about going to town one of those days. The actual facts were a bit confusing. I try not to take her too seriously but by about the third or fourth different answer she tried, she admitted that she was probably drunk. I didn’t feel like a successful prosecutor for having got this answer. It was just something that she could say to make the problem go away. She didn’t want any problems with me and I don’t want any problems with her. What she does with her life is her business and not mine.
Then she toddled off down the road and I brought my food inside and transferred it into glass jars. We do not feed the mice here so all grains and dried foods either go in glass or get stuck inside a refrigerator that doesn’t work. The house is as mouse proof as possible. This doesn’t stop them but it keeps them from being too annoying.
Not having any cheese lying around definitely helps.
That was it basically. That was the entire excitement of the day. I did some computer work for a while and then took a nap on the couch. Again, maybe I could have been more dynamic but I didn’t really want to do anything on my feet.
But then a funny thing happened. That cop came rolling up the street and parked in front of my house. I heard my name called and I called back to see if he wanted anything. He was on the phone talking to somebody. I didn’t get the entire conversation. He was just saying things like everything is normal and everything is okay. Why was he stopped in front of my house? What did he need?
So I ambled out to the front gate and asked him what he needed. He asked me if Lena was with me. I simply said no and he never said anything else. I asked him if everything was okay and he waved me off and after a minute he turned around and drove back. I don’t think he ever stopped talking on the phone.
You can’t call Lena during the day because she only has a home phone. There is no mobile phone to get a hold of her with and she usually spends the day outside looking for something interesting to spend her time with. She has a lot of friends in town and is usually happy to be in the company of somebody. I can’t blame her a whole lot. Actually, I can’t really blame her for anything.
So I don’t know what the big mystery is. I do know however why the cop would come to me to ask about Lena. It was from something during our conversation over the gate this morning.
While we were talking, my neighbor, the chicken woman, backed her filthy poison machine out and poisoned our air for us. I asked Lena if it was noticeable that all of our fresh air suddenly disappeared. This was understood immediately and we both agreed as to the proper profession of the chicken woman. Who she has been is who she is and no one should really expect her changing any time in the future.
Then Lana pointed across the street to the hunchback’s house and said that he had questioned her as to why she had spoken to me. What an interesting turn of events. Why are my neighbors preventing me from getting help? I understand that they want to run me out of town. God forbid Jews should live here. They are definitely begging for a court appearance. They are begging to waste resources, another sure sign that you’re living with conservatives. I really wish the cancer would move faster with them. It’s too slow for my taste.
But now we have a massive mystery. I don’t doubt that word got over to the cop that Lena might be over helping me. It’s not like it’s a big secret that she cleans my house from time to time. But now Lena is missing. Could my neighbors have murdered her just to create a problem that sends the cop over to me? Exactly how evil are the people of the Republic of Belarus these days? Exactly how much Russian coercion has become an absolute staple of human interaction here?
Other than this, I don’t really know anything else. At the bottom line, it’s nothing but a reconfirmation of exactly why I don’t really like people here. I don’t like them when they’re happy and I don’t like them when they’re working. I don’t like them when they are playing with children, sucking the life out of their innocence and I definitely don’t like them when they go out of their way to cause me problems.
So what can you say about this? It’s basically skid row here, isn’t it? It’s skid row with mostly fresh air. I guess this is the opposite end of gentrification and an economic system that only feeds the 3%. Maybe what the place needs is Batman.
Anyway, just some words to let you know what’s going on. Really, taken minute by minute, only about eight of the 300 minutes since 7:00 a.m. this morning have had people in it. That’s literally only 2.7% of my time today. In that 2.7%, I felt hatred, paranoia and a nice healthy dose of covid. Tell me again where I should be happier?
The wind is kicking up again. There’s not going to be any clouds or rain today but it looks like it’s going to be windy. I won’t get up to play with watering the plants until 5:00 or 6:00. Really, there is nothing else to do here but just take it easy right now. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow whether Lena is dead or not. Crazy stuff.
***
7:00 p.m. and the watering is done. My leg felt like it hung in there pretty well. I’ll find out in an hour or two when I settle in for the evening. Basically, a few days of rest had me pretty strong. Of course even with cheap materials, it’s possible to do a good job if you are organized and I organized myself before starting. Everything got wet. The garden looks pretty good.
I see now that I did not do enough in certain areas this spring. I understand a lot of my mistakes. I don’t feel like beating myself for a lot of them. A lot of the problem simply came because I physically couldn’t do it anymore. It was a ridiculous amount of work for me to set up the boxes and all of the lower gardens. I could have done a better job. And next year I will try to improve and make things better.
There is also a feeling that is coming over me now that hasn’t been there for a while. It’s not really pity for the plants, it’s more a sense of responsibility. There is no distraction for me. I’m not thinking of anyone else doing their job right now. I don’t want to be harsh or overly dramatic but there was absolutely no one to do this job today but me and therefore there was no distraction in it for me.
Of course, if you admire nature there are changes happening everywhere. There are plans that have been pure green all spring that now are drifting towards reds. There is a fight going on to make children as quickly as possible. I definitely did not allow suitable enough land for my zucchinis. I believed after last year’s explosion that I didn’t really have to worry so much about this plant and that it would be Hardy enough to handle anything. This is exactly not the case though. Last year, we had some volunteers that simply exploded because there happened to be a bunch of fertilizer exactly where they were growing. I will also fix this last year because truthfully, I really like zucchini. I know people find it a joke how much zucchini they have but for me, it was a wonderful staple food last year and I’m sad not to have access to it this year. I’m certainly not starving but it really would have been nice to have more.
It’s all just a matter of time and attention. It’s a matter of dedication in a way. It’s also a matter of wanting to do something. But perhaps right now what I’m really thinking is that it is most important not to be disturbed in your efforts to do something. If you have a problem in your road and it somehow plays with your attention, you simply are not going to be as effective. It’s like weeds in a way or sickness. You just can’t get to where you’re going if you’re constantly distracted. Clarity means not being bothered.
But as I said, this is a great learning experience for me. This week and today even has been a great learning experience. All I can hope for is that I get better. I know there is some deep satisfaction in a job well done and I’m hoping I have some opportunities to genuinely feel good about the work I’m doing here. Right now I simply see too many mistakes to really feel like patting myself on the back. I don’t deserve it.
Anyway, tomorrow is another day and all I can do is make sure I’m there for it.
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