You should really work on your tone. Check out the middle bottom title here.
Monday, December 31, 2018
Friday, December 28, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Friday, December 21, 2018
Back 2 Neal
I've been bouncing around a lot lately. Fasting, not fasting. Stress eating. Yelling at the kids. Flying off the handle. It's so not me. I need to get back to my usual zen self.
Food has been poisoning me. I need to just keep it simple. Eat what I need. Stop stress eating when the kids get on my nerves.
I used to be one of the most patient people. No more. I'm not sure why, either. Everything seems to be going our way. Katy is making more than an SES. I'm making a ton of money for doing basically....nothing. Not quite nothing. But very little indeed. Certainly less than I've ever done. So many toxic work experiences over the past 11 years have taken their toll. It's time to let them go and move forward.
Part of the problem now acute anxiety over the kids future and the state of the world. And the fear of feeding them into the same system that I went through. The idiot education machine. Run by idiots. Taught by idiots. Surrounded by idiots. Yeah....that one. Is it wrong for me to want something a bit better for my kids? But what would be better. Home schooling? That wouldn't be the most healthy option, particularly if I'm the teacher. My world view isn't the best to rub off on young minds. Attitudes are contagious...mine might kll you.
Private school with all the other privileged youths? Perhaps the quality of education would be better, but I wouldn't want them interacting with fucked up preps.
<sigh>
Also it's pretty fucking obvious that this world is flying apart at an alarmingly accelerating rate. Climate change is accelerating. We were inundated with rain yet again, in mid-December. Do the climate deniers never go outside? Are their yards not turning into swamps while the West burns? I really don't get it. It's right out your fucking window, moron!
And don't even get me started on the political situation. Suffice it to say that all governments, like all bloated bureaucracies, are totally incapable of responding to any threat. "Power of One" was added to Netflix, on a side note, and I watched my favorite scene with the prisoner's concert. After that scene, it cuts back to the main character's school, and the teacher says "Any system that spends resources attacking that which least threatens it will not survive a generation." Holy shit, how prescient. That's where we are. Ignoring the truly existential threats and focusing on things that don't matter two dingoes kidneys.
Honestly it's a lot like the situation I faced in high school. Exactly, actually. I was overweight and started training to survive nuclear war. I lost 50 lbs in a month by watching my diet and starting to run. Well, running isn't an option anymore. I've learned after 25 years of running that it's useless, and there's a lot of better things you can do. But here I am, facing existential threats, but this time to my children. So, like then, I guess I have the option of just giving up or fighting my way the fuck out.
I chose fight. Doing nothing isn't an option. Filtering what I do to what I like seems the most logical course. I like lifting. Hitting things. A healthy dose of physical labor now and then. There's ample opportunity for all of those. Fuck endless and pointless cardio. Fast when you want. When you eat, eat things you like and eat what your body needs. Change your stress response from eating to fasting.
There is no system, no master plan. The universe....is indifferent. I should be too. Through all the fight in my youth I came to a zen-like detachment from the world. I discovered that humanity was ultimately worthless and that nothing I could do would change this fact. I also learned that, logically, humanity is destined to destroy ourselves. For the longest time I wrestled with this undeniable fact. In the end, all I was able to control was the level of my emotional attachment to it and the effect that depressing reality has on me. For a decade it inoculated me against pretty much anything. The total annihilation of mankind being an inevitable foregone conclusion, everything else seems a moot point. I am always startled at what people get hung up on, particularly at work. I mean people argue and get worked up over the dumbest fucking shit. Jesus.
People at work still mention that they are surprised how things never affect me. It's because work means nothing to me. Accomplishment, recognition, promotion, awards....I have no need for these things. Nor should you.
What matters to me is my family. My friends. Their future. I know in the end I am just as helpless in shaping those as I discovered earlier in life. I guess I need to learn to let go a bit and let things play out. And just do my best to guide them through the tempest, both literal and metaphorical, that they are facing.
The reminder to go lift just popped up on my screen. A couple of last thoughts before I go do the 3-rep max all muscle groups shred....a key part of letting go of how fucked up the world is getting would be detachment from the digital globe. Step 1: Stop reading news....spoiler alert - it's all bad. Step 2: Ditch the smartphone, it's too easy to lose yourself texting, checking email, weather, news, whatever. None of it is shit you need to know. You have a life to live. Get off the fucking phone and do it. Step 3: Say a big "Fuck you" to cooking, cleaning, doing housework, etc. and spend more time playing with the kids.
How troublesome.
Road to Recovery
I had a vasectomy on Tuesday. It's Thursday. Most of Tuesday was spent icing my balls. Wednesday, I went to work in the morning, got some beer at lunch, and then went home. Today I'm at work and it's OK, but the sutures are still sticking out and getting hung on any gauze I put on them. So now I'm down to underwear and we'll see how that goes.
Since I'm recovering, I guess it's time to revisit everything else. Evaluate what works for me and what doesn't. I've really been digging the lifting. Having some down time has let me slow down and think a bit more.
Last week we got our first plug-in hybrid, the Honda Clarity. After driving it, I got in the van and thought: "What kind of monster drives an internal combustion engine?" ICE is dead. A dinosaur that runs on dinosaurs. Today I got lunch at Mom's Organic Market, and topped off the battery for free while I ate. Yup, this is the way to go. Wholesome food and free energy. No gas. Shit, why didn't I do this a long time ago?
I've also been thinking about Elon Musk's Boring company project. All the nerds at work love it. At the unveiling, Elon said that "we work in 3-D buildings" surrounded by 2-D infrastructure, so it's no wonder there's traffic when everyone piles out of the buildings and into the streets at the same time. Duh Elon. But instead of pouring all those resources into a matrix of underground tunnels, we fundamentally change the way we operate? I'll tell you why....it's free. The same reason fasting isn't taken seriously in this country. It's effective and it's free. Free and logical solutions are verboten. Only solutions that generate money for overlords like Musk are the ones considered and promoted endlessly on TV.
Wow....that tunnel promo really rubbed me the wrong way. We should instead revamp the idiotic way our society operates to provide a practically endless infrastructure project to his company. He's pitching the same tired shit to keep society wasteful, but he wants you doing it in a Tesla rather than a Ford. This isn't the way to overhaul our infrastructure. We should instead leverage technology and flexible work schedules to reduce traffic.
Stagger shifts for all workers.....and maximize telework? Dare I say, make it state law or local ordnance in high traffic areas that all professionals be provided the opportunity for full time telework? No professional job needs an office. All you need is an internet connection, a computer, and a desk. This would save companies all all of the office overhead and waste maintaining climate control. Plus it would save all the wasted time and energy commuting. While you're at it, ban work travel except in extreme conditions. There's no reason to fly across the country or continents to have a face to face meeting. Try Skype, fuckheads!
Why aren't we doing this? Well, as I mentioned above, these changes are logical. Strike one. They would reduce mindless consumption. Strike two. Many of them are free. Strike fucking three.
Money. Corporations want you burning as much of that gas as possible, so you have to keep paying. They want you all in the same place at the same time. They want control. They want everything. Your time, your work, your kids, your life. They're all in bed together, inventing ways to fuck you out of everything you have. Even the planet. And it's working. Frugality will never be in vogue. But saving the planet may be once things get so bad they can turn a profit doing it. That's where all your kids money is gonna go. Buying air filters, masks, and habitability systems to keep them alive on this wasted rock.
<sigh>
I think we should all read a couple of books again. Ones that were probably introduced to us a long time ago, when we were kids and we couldn't appreciate them. That was definitely by design. One, you probably wouldn't read it again. And two, you were inoculated against wanting to read them because you were forced to. "Walden" and "Self-Reliance." One focuses on the bare minimum needs. The second, on your responsibility to take care of yourself.
They want you to think you're all alone. You're not. We're all isolated together. More and more of us are starting to wise up to the lies. Waking up to the truth. On the radio last night, "Jazz and Justice," a talk host was railing against capitalism, saying that our elections are important not because of what they offer us, but what they don't.....an alternative to capitalism. Fucking A.
Face it, the government isn't going to help. It won't be allowed to by its handlers. Corporations aren't going to help beyond a level that is tax recoverable. I hate to break this to you, but it's all on you. On us. The only way this ship can be righted is if a whole lot of people stand up, brush themselves off, and do the right thing. Ignoring cost. Ignoring trends. Ignoring ads and societal pressure and all the other bullshit that's been put in our way.
Join......or die.
Thursday, December 20, 2018
Late bloomer
bravo US.....bravo. The last horse finally crosses the finishing line. Should we all go have cookies now that lynching is officially a federal crime?
Monday, December 17, 2018
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