Hello Everyone!
Rising early, A path blindly walked, More hiking less mental chatter, Grouping up explained & Get them hands dirty!
I am up long before sunrise this morning and although my rest was a bit fitful at first last night, I eventually settled into a deep slumber and had some rather intense dreams. Thankfully the dreams are not crowding my mind this morning even though the echo of them (how they felt) is still present. Which is fine of course because my mind really needs the break after being in overdrive these last few weeks.
Perhaps I have at long last regained my full equilibrium and the internal upheaval portion of things is over. Sure I still have plenty of said 'upheaval' ahead of me but that is (I hope) going to be more related to packing down, finding a new place, getting moved and whatnot.
I have no doubts that I will still face many more 'ups and downs' during that process... but overall... that is sort of 'expected' and not all that big of a deal in the not-so-grand scheme of things. I guess that what I am trying to say is that I have reached some kind of closure over it all (for now) and determined that no matter what I am on the path in life that I need to be on.
Not that I actually know what the heck said 'path' actually is, what it looks like, where it leads or even if I can navigate it 'in the dark' so to speak. But... none of that is significant as long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other while gently feeling out my way and continue pacing myself as I do so.
Obviously life keeps 'throwing me curve balls' and although I occasionally 'swing and miss' most of the time I am simply un-phased by it, take it as my lot in life, re-position myself and try to 'knock it out of the fucking park' before I can strike out... or get hit by the ball! Yeah, I am not super big on the sports analogies but hopefully folks understand my sentiment there.
Lately I have been feeling quite discouraged in life and have been doing my best to look everything over (especially my lifestyle choices) in an effort to see what I can do to somehow make things better. Hence me expressing all the different 'options' I am mulling over and generally thinking about changes that are well outside my comfort zone.
Believe me I am not 'grateful' for the situation that I find myself in which has more or less forced me into said 'lines of thought' but it is after all 'where I am at' and nothing that I do (or think) will alter that little factoid. I am not a fan of 'forcing my hand' (or anyone else's for that matter) but since said hand has been forced... I have to look at what to do with it from there.
To be clear here. I am simply saying that: No matter what I will guide my own 'hand' and no amount of external forces will do it for me. Perhaps if I were more reactionary, had less discipline or were 'weaker willed' I would have a different attitude about all that but there you have it and as hard won as it all is... I will not let the choices of others dictate my decision making.
Currently I have been under immense strain and just doing the best that I can to navigate it all and maintain the necessary wherewithal to do so in an intelligent, calm, responsible way. That said though, I have been going back and re-reading my recent entries here (a lot) and it is quite obvious to me that yup I have been fretting way too much, let myself meander more than usual and overall I have been 'pouring it all out' in an effort to make some sense of my internal landscape.
So if it seems like I am slightly (or greatly) off kilter... it is because I am! Believe me I have been doing so much 'course correction' with myself (whilst not knowing my actual course) that it is easy to get stuck doing so and lose sight of the stuff that I should be focusing on. In other words it is hard to choose a direction when I am spinning in frigging circles chasing my own tail!
I do believe the worst of all that is over at this juncture and for all intents and purposes it has to be lest I 'jump track' and find myself in oncoming traffic! The thing is that I am weary, I am tired and I am stressed on so many levels that my more pragmatic self is screaming at me to 'do nothing' until I get my mind sorted. All of which sounds good but whoa I just want to move on in life and firmly close this chapter with no further ado!
How to close said chapter is the tricky part though because like I have noted before just getting out of my current scenario is a financial and logistical nightmare. Not that either of those impediments have stopped me before but I am rather isolated from folks that I know (so no helpers there) and yeah the lack of a 'destination' makes it even more complicated and/or frustrating.
I cannot do much on the 'complicated' front but I have been doing everything that I can on the destination and frustration fronts. Thankfully I know my self well enough to manage the frustration aspect and get it so 'under wraps' that it is not a hindrance but ugh it has been like trying to shove the proverbial genie back into the bottle before it can entice me into 'making foolish wishes' that wind up biting me in the ass.
As in most big decisions in life 'clarity is key' and by that I mean inner clarity about wants, needs, desires, aversions, likes, dislikes, fears and all the stuff that most of us feel really uncomfortable taking a closer look at. Believe me when my own mind's eye turns inward I not only know that it is doing so but I also know the value of not hiding anything from it in an effort to protect/shield myself from what it might see.
In other words as I am so fond of saying: I have to acknowledge the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful! Doing anything else would be merely selling myself short and would not actually put me any closer to clarity... let alone what to do with that clarity if and when I obtain it. There is absolutely no 'hippy-dippy woo-woo' crap to all that because all I am saying is that: Honesty with myself goes a long way and the road of self-deception is a very short fall into oblivion!
Okay, it is a bit later in the morning and I am once again back at the keyboard in an effort to spell things out. It kind of slipped my mind earlier but I did want to touch on what I meant in yesterday's entry about 'grouping up' and try to clearly express what I meant by that and the sort of group that I think would be worthwhile to form and/or join... or however it is best put!
Folks in groups by and large represent all sorts of difficulties and of course I mean more than just those difficulties that can be expressed with such sayings as 'herd mentality' or 'mob mentality' so do not get your knickers in a twist there before I can even launch into the topic! To gloss over a bunch of other stuff and go straight to the heart of it: Groups are fucking dangerous!
I say that because even unwittingly the impact of a group (on say a piece of land) is astronomically larger than a single person and mitigating said damage from say human waste, food waste (which should never occur but I digress) to animal waste, to fire danger, to illness, to an increase in rodent populations or whatever can be extremely difficult to manage.
This is especially problematic because most folks have no idea what their own impact really amounts to let alone the consequences of said impact. Believe me it is a harsh reality that most tend to ignore rather than educate themselves on let alone do some basic preemptive measures to help avoid most problems to start with.
Most of us that have 'half a brain and two eyes' only need to look at what is left after say a festival, an outdoor concert, a sporting event or even a group camp-out to see what I am talking about there and those are all 'temporary' scenarios. But for the sake of my point I hope you understand what I mean regardless of how temporary a gathering of people is. We leave a mess behind. Period.
Now lets flip that on its head and look at what a group does in a more permanent scenario where there will be repeated impact... in say a city or a town or whatever. We know that first off it is a completely unsustainable situation without a massive amount of infrastructure in place to deal with the waste (in all its various forms) and of course it requires even more infrastructure (in the form of people) to assure that basic rules of sanitation/disposal are followed.
In other words, folks left to their own devices to 'deal with things responsibly' just does not work in most western societies (not to harp on them but it is the only reference I personally have experience with) and we know that yes disease happens, waste piles up and folks will literally shit on the sidewalk wipe their ass with whatever they can and leave it there before walking away as if nothing is amiss.
I know that is a rather extreme example but yeah it happens all the time and with a heck of a lot more than just some stinky poop! What I am driving at there is that by and large the majority of folks just do not have the knowledge, tools or even the cultural reference as to why it is important to be responsible in such matters and trust me if you think the odor is the worst part... let me tell you that cholera and dysentery are way more problematic than a frigging unpleasant smell!
Obviously 'groups' represent various other 'dangers' such as violence, bad ideas gaining traction through charismatic personalities, abuses being tolerated and/or encouraged and all sorts of other things that I really do not want to delve into. Of course there are also mildly (to highly) radicalized groups which are a whole different 'ball of wax' that generally deserve to meet the melting pot in my not so humble opinion!
So for the sake of preserving my point I am glossing over all that stuff because yeah I never want to be within a hundred miles of such folks and even putting that much effort into it is more attention than they deserve getting from me. Those kinds of groups are by and large already 'ticking time bombs' of self-destruction and I sure do not mind leaving them to their own misguided and disastrous fate that they so artlessly craft for themselves.
Yeah all that is a mouthful but I think (considering the times) it is significant to point out that none of those are the sort of groups I feel inclined towards being a part of. What I am looking for are folks who can be responsible stewards of both themselves and the land in which they inhabit, who foster understanding over strife and generally want to 'live and let live' in such a way that even lacking 'abundance' at least some kind of 'having enough to get by without undo suffering' can be achieved.
I long ago lost any naive notions of 'utopia' or any horseshit like that and am really just saying that no group will ever be flawless (or perfect) but having a strong commitment to work through problems, challenges and difficulties for a common good... is fucking priceless. As with any 'relationship' between humans there will be ups and downs, pros and cons, failures and successes... and that is just a part of life!
How those things are dealt with (or not dealt with) are what 'makes or breaks' a group and those are just the internal pressures and/or stressors. Furthermore if you do not know it 'nothing happens in a vacuum' and there will assuredly always be external pressures and/or stressors at play and yeah how those are dealt with (or not dealt with) also tends to make or break a group.
Alright, it is much later in the day and I need to segue into something else before I make the 'group' thing more complicated than it needs to be. Just to wrap that topic up though, what I was getting at is that from time immemorial folks have found ways to work together peacefully, police themselves appropriately and rise to the occasion in the face of both scarcity and adversity. Not to over simplify things but: Their downfall (or success) is rooted in how they go about doing those things.
Anyway, I am currently taking a break from doing stuff outdoors and will probably do something that I seldom do these days which is eat some lunch! I know that I mentioned a few times lately how I have been steadily increasing my caloric intake but I never mentioned how. Mainly what I have been doing (given my disdain for cooking) is making large batches of rice (or pasta) and then eating on it for a few days until it is gone.
I have also been making some biscuits every few days and stretching them as far as I can as well. So far my tactic has been working because anytime I get even slightly hungry I am like 'Oh yeah I have this big stash of food that is ready to eat sans any fuss!' which yeah sounds quirky... but there you have it! Of course I have also been eating a good bit of frozen fish but I never cook enough of it to last more than one or two meals.
In regards to my pantry I have been trying to whittle away at it as much as I can (while still maintaining a buffer) so that when I move I do not have to haul a bunch of 'extra weight' along with me. I also do not want to arrive somewhere that lacks adequate storage for it all and potentially turn my camp into a bear (or pest) attractant!
All in all I feel kind of foolish letting my food supply dwindle smaller and smaller but all things considered I think it is my best option. Hopefully no major calamity happens between now and then and I will not be left thinking something like: Oh no I just wiped out all my extra food and there is now no way to replenish it!
On a different note. I keep thinking about how all the stuff that I have done over the years has given me a really good working knowledge of so many things that most folks only read about or watch videos of but have no actual experience with. Not that I 'know it all' but whoa it is a heck of a lot for one small brain!
Do not get me wrong there because reading (or watching videos) is highly informative (depending on the quality of the content) and while sure I still do both of those things... I think that it is important that folks roll their sleeves up (so to speak) and get their frigging hands dirty trying stuff for themselves! Most of the time the worst that might happen is 'failure' but hey if you have not figured it out in life by now: Failure is one heck of an awesome teacher!
Okay, the day is getting late here and I managed to squeeze in another hike and also got all that stuff in the fire pit burned before it could get rained on again. I was actually hoping to burn some more stuff but the wind picked up (just moments after I lit the fire) so I did my best to help it burn itself out rapidly before dowsing the entire pit with water and putting the fire out completely!
Well, I think that I am going to call this entry good enough and get on with the editing and posting. In short, it was a rather productive day and my inner peace is thoroughly intact! I hope that everyone is doing well and has a nice day/night.
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