I don’t have any rambling thesises today. No rants or raves or annoyances or lunatic platitudes. You’ll have to check Glen Beck’s Web site for that. The only thing I’ll offer up today are a few links that might not appear connected at first but after reading both (it will take some time) you’ll see both dovetail into each other. For a further explanation, check back Monday or Tuesday.
Link 1: Ecological Unconscious
339 and counting. That is how many days I have left on the lease at my current address. I want to move to the country side in 338 days. Unfortunately, that cost money, and my current job isn’t a gold mine. So today begins the first day of fighting back against consumerism. To date, I’ve lost battles in some of the most horrible ways. Gruesome injuries and deaths of fellow soldiers have beset me. Take the battle of the latte as an example. I spend between $90 and $120 at one coffee shop per month. Not only is that glutinous, but it is a huge chunk of change that I could be stashing away for a down payment on a few acres in the country. With that money saved, I’ve got about $1,200 towards my goal, not a small amount for me.
In addition to putting money in the bank for a farm, this reduction in spending will also serve as a reduction in my participation of a system that is morally bankrupt. Thus redemption by thrift becomes a triumph.
That’s the plan at least.
New photos up, for the first time in a long time. Check out the Lens page and follow the links.
An earlier post, Work work work, all day long, talked about how physical labor is freeing. I’d like to elaborate on that. Physical work, the kind that involves your brain and body, is freeing because it creates a self-reliant person. The man (I’m going to use man as substitute for human just because I want to. It’s not meant to offend or be misogynistic) who can fix his property is freed from depending on the repairman for service. Even better, he is freed from the consumer market because, while his counterpart who doesn’t have the knowledge of repair must buy a new product, the self-reliant can simply fix the old one.
To me, the person who embodies all of these qualities is the homestead farmer. Do not confuse farmer for the poor saps who drive enormous machinery and command vast acres of deserts masquerading as forest of corn and soy beans. Those fools are so indebted to the banks and federal government that they can never know freedom. In fact, they pass that same indebtedness to their children. They are slaves who think they are free.
The farmer I idolize is the one who raises enough crops and animals to feed his own and has enough left over to sell or barter with neighbors to get all of life’s other requirements. Look for the callous hands and crows feet from squinting into the sun and you’ll know what farmers I am talking about. They have sausage link fingers on the claws they call hands. They haven’t spent a day in a gym but they have the strength most gym rats would kill for. Spend a summer bailing hay and you’ll get a taste of the physicality needed to be a farmer. Spend a year planning for planting and harvest and you know the intelligence these people have.
Honestly, once I have the capital, both in monetarily and mentally, I will quit this rat race of journalism and take up a much more pastoral existence. Wanna join?
This post inspired by Wendell Berry, a fellow Kentuckian.
Injury. I don’t think there is a dirtier word in the English language. It has so much weight behind it that when you hear it, it feels like John Henry hitting you in the chest with his sledgehammer.
So few things in life remain the same; you lose a job, get a job, move to a different city, make new friends, forget old ones. The one constant for me has been exercise. I’m not some meathead or a someone who weighs their food to make sure they don’t put on an extra quarter pound, which would translate into carrying an extra 6.5 pounds in a marathon. I’m just a guy who likes to run and lift weights. I feel like exercise is a fundamental part of being human.
As I write this, there is a dull pain in my left foot. I’ve felt it before. I know what it is. I’m in denial now, but am soon moving on to acceptance. It’s a stress fracture. It’s not a huge deal. I’ll stay away from running for a week or two, but damn it. Not being able to take off and run for a half hour is depressing, it’s like loosing some freedom, stuck in a prison of my own making.
Normally I’d transition into some weightlifting but I hurt my right shoulder while moving into my new apartment. I sit here a broken man, unable to lighten my burden through my typical means. These are the times when I want to smoke. I need some stress release, some way of getting outside of myself for a while. I don’t even think I could make it through a Yoga routine without aggravating one of my injuries.
Now I play the waiting game. I sit, and I wait. Which will give first, my need to find relief, a.k.a, drinking too much on a week night, then walk to the gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes. A decision I’ll regret only after I’ve smoked half the pack over the course of several days. Or will my injuries heal quick enough that whatever stress I develop can be held inside without rupturing. I’m not sure. I’m praying for the latter but expecting the former, and this is the first day (Jan. 19, 2010) I’ll miss a scheduled run. It’s going to be a long few weeks.
“What are you majoring in?” the old man asked his son’s girlfriend at the table behind me.
“Journalism.”
“What do you want to do with that?”
“I don’t know, write for a magazine or something, like fashion journalism”
I should kill her now, save the world from one more of her kind, Alex thought. Then the father-in-law to be jumped in.
“Journalist are all full of bullshit. I had one come in and interview me. He only used a five second clip from the interview. They’ll manipulate whatever you say to fit their story.”
At this point Alex couldn’t sit silent, after all he was a paid reporter, one of a dying breed. This assault on his profession wouldn’t stand. He turned around and was faced with the man confusing television personalities for reporters. Three hundred pounds of red-state, his jowl was a sight to be seen.
“Most of them are illiterate, too”Alex chimed in.
“Excuse me?” the fat bastard said as more of a command than a question. He was obviously an Alpha male.
“No, it’s true. Most reporters don’t know how to read. They’re petty criminals who have some semblance of street smarts and damn good memories. They call in the facts or statements they hear to editors who actually write the articles.”
Jowl looked confused. Alex thought a further explanation, one grounded in reality, might help.
“You know Woodword and Burnstein, the Watergate reporters, deepthroat, that whole bag? Neither one of them could read past a third grade level. Experts now agree both have Aspergers. Photographic memories, both of them. Show them 20 items for a split second and they’ll be able to list ’em all. But give them a copy of one of their articles and you’ll be lucky if one of them recognizes their own name.”
The father, son and girlfriend all looked at Alex with blank stares. It was unnerving.
“Well it’s been enlightening, I’m sure, but my cab’s here” Alex said as he stepped away from the table. “Remember, illiterate criminals. Don’t turn your back on them, they’ll pick your pocket then ask you for a quote about the robbery. Traitorous bastards.”
Alex walked away, convinced he had saved his profession from having another hack join the ranks and a source so confused he’d never talk to another reporter. Good riddance.
I’ve started reading “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work” by Matthew Crawford. It’s been interesting so far, and I’m guessing it only gets better, or at least doesn’t fall off at all. His basic argument is that is intrinsic value in manual labor. He goes on to say our cultural has ignored this concept, and even worked to reverse that belief. To be honest, reading this books is like being in the congregation of the converted while the reverend preaches about salvation. I’ve held this view for a while. I’ve held down a job since I was 14. It started with the typical white picketed fence Americana summer gig; mowing lawns. Eventually that led me to finding riding lawnmowers with “Free” signs on their rusting frames. I’d push them back to my father’s garage, and nurse them back to life, if only for a month. On at least one occasion this put me in mortal danger. The most recent Frankenstein was a three-wheeled rider on which the rider sat, straddling the gas tank and engine. I’m not sure what part of the mower was broken it when I got it. I did what always seems to work in that situation, took it apart, cleaned everything, and put it back together. It worked. The only problem I couldn’t quite fix was a flooded carburetor. Running from the gas tank were two fuel lines. To start the mower I had to disconnect one, pull start it, and then quickly connect the line. It was tricky business, sparks and gas spraying everywhere. Eventually the odds caught up with me and the disconnected gas line caught a spark, which turned into a fire. I ran the two blocks to my house to grab a fire extinguisher and by the time I had gotten back, only a skeleton of my mower remained. Unlike the movies, nothing exploded. And it was an empty lot so I didn’t have any homeowner angry about the giant burnt spot in his lawn. In addition to salvaging, then destroying, lawnmowers, I’ve worked in the shop of a John Deere Dealership, poured concrete more times than I care to remember, cut down trees, even dug a couple of graves. All those experiences have let me know one thing about myself, I’m okay with doing physical labor. If this journalism thing doesn’t work out I’m okay finding a job as a ditch digger. I think there is something to be said for coming home and the end of the day dirty and a little sore. It certainly eliminates the need for a weight-lifting routine. Another point Crawford draws upon is that the person who is versed in manual labor, specifically one that draws on both intelligence and physicality, is less indebted to others. If there is a problem with the toilet, he or she can fix it. If the oil in the car needs changing, the person who is use to handling a wrench can do that. Knowledge of our physical surroundings and the basics of how they work allows one a certain degree of self-reliance, and thus independence, not known to the person who calls the repairman for every problem. Crawford is able to say all this more coherently than me (he also leans a lot harder on the erudite language, probably because he’s got a post-doctorate degree) so you should probably read him to fully understand the argument.
I think all of this explains why I look cooking from scratch so much. It demands a certain physicality and mentality that is kin to building furniture or working on a 1993, two liter, double-overhead-camshaft Mitsubishi engine. I enjoy slicing vegetables or rolling out the batter for real tortillas. I like starting from scratch on a bread recipe and watching raw materials transform into a delicious food. (Crawford addresses this, but not in the depth I would like.) It’s the physical and mental involvement that makes homemade food taste even better. The same principle follows when you make anything from bare materials. It’s the effort put into the creation as much as the creation itself that gives satisfaction.
An elaboration of the the previous post.
WhiteRoom is one piece of a march larger puzzle I’ve been working on. I guess, at the core, at the very center of the storm, is the question of what is life about, but that is entirely too abstract to find a suitable answer. People have been searching for that question since the dawn of cognition. I doubt in my 24 years here I’ve found some hidden secret everyone before me simply overlooked. However, that doesn’t stop me from trying. So instead of asking what is life about, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on that by the way, I’m trying to figure out how to live.
So far, I’ve tried a few different approaches. Living behind the curtain of drugs worked for a while, not real well, but I could do it. Cynicism seems like an easy option, though it ends in an ugly, forsaken, slow death. I’ve never really tried unbridled optimism. I don’t plan on it, either. That’s just not in my nature. The most recent path I’ve taken has been materialism. Dear God that has been the worst choice to date. It’s a coalescence of cynicism, optimism, narcissism, and megalomania. I enjoy all of those on occasion. When combined, though, they are exhausting and unimaginably unfulfilling.
Now I’ve embarked on another approach that I’m not sure what to call. Minimalism if you want, though that is way to broad and inaccurate. Maybe a little bit of Ludditeism, though I enjoy my laptop and new iTouch. And just considering this adds a dash of narcissism. Who knows, maybe it’s all just a reaction to the culture of consumption I’ve been raised in. I’ve always had a problem with authority. I like to do the opposite of what I’m told, even when I know it is bad for me. Regardless, I’m trying to get by with less, at least according to conventional standards. I’m going sans television, including DVDs, for the foreseeable future, though I still go to the movie theater on a regular basis. Eventually I’ll cave and get the Internet in my apartment, but I’ve got motives for that I’m not going to discuss here. (Believe it or not, it’s not porn)
I guess what I’m trying to do is eliminate anything that would cause me to avoid interacting with people. I want to be forced to find entertainment in strangers. I don’t want to watch a movie, I want to be involved in situations that could be in a movie. That’s the real fun. I don’t want escapism. I want realism. I want the concrete and tactile sensations that come with actually experiencing something, not just watching it on a screen.
Dear God, has this splintered into the incomprehensible ravings of a lunatic, or someone who has a tenuous hold on reality at best? Why didn’t you speak up two paragraphs back? I blame this entire catastrophe on you. It certainly isn’t my fault I couldn’t stay on task. And you knew that coming into the thing, at least if you read the previous post. If not, and you don’t know me, then, well, I guess you got a taste of what goes on in my head.
Normally there is some semblance of editing on these things, but I’m afraid to go back and read over what I put down. It seems like it be just to0 depressing.
Manic Publishing 