| November
30, 2006
I'm going to be so terribly uncool this trip, I can
just feel it. Meanwhile I can point out Ran
Prieur's site - which today just hits it right on
the the head. If you still want bright and shiney new
things, even if they are "save the earth"
light bulbs and plastic composters, giant composting
toilets, or hybrid electric cars, well, you aren't getting
it. You still are in the baby boomer get more stuff
mode. More is always the solution, except of course
when it is exactly the problem.
Buy
LESS
Work LESS
Want LESS
I'm
packing and throwing things away in preparation for
leaving Eugene, and the associated wet and cold weather.
I will work my way down to one of my favorite spots,
Quartzsite, AZ. I always have some nervousness about
traveling with my home. On one hand I love that I'm
mobile and can move my whole house to where my body
loves the weather. On the other hand, there is a lot
of packing, checking, fluids to check, bearings to pack
and things to test and get done before I go - just part
of my personality. Once underway I love it, but this
part sucks a little.
November
24th, 2006
You can see above that I've been playing with the commonsense
logo, reversing it and adding the aftershock. I think
that pretty much sums up my life right now. I'm getting
ready to head south and I'm in the frantic time of packing,
saying goodbye for now to friends and my girlfriend.
This is always a difficult time for me, for despite
that my life has been an incredible menu of change after
change, I'm not good at it. I am working on three laptops
to be my worker bees for the next six months and I'm
always looking for a substitute for Dreamweaver.
Trying some editing in Open Office right now. I'll start
my blog with pictures once I get underway. I have to
change so much of this site, as the rants are too limited
in scope and the overall tone is negative. Despite what
I feel is coming, I do think we all can start focusing
on what we can do, instead of what we can't. Chicken
little has come through and left, and now the questions
are procedural. The crash is coming from many directions,
but I can't influence that very much. However I can
can figure out how to have some fun, learn to be even
more independent of the changes that are blowing in,
well, then I think I will have been successful.
November
15th, 2006
No, I'm rebuilding it now. Commonsense has fled and
we are all in for the ride of our life as oil peaks,
the oceans go sterile, the temperature's rising and
the party continues. Sleepwalkers will not be called
back, so while I get this tuned up you might want to
prepare by reading the following website links - just
to be ready to start the process of grieving for loss
of our shared American dream. The question you might
come away with is "what do we do now?" The
answer to that is the reason for this website.
Peak
Oil
www.peakoil.com
aspo
Debt
and Dollars
Mogambo
Guru - Independence Journal
Transition
from energy addiction
www.ranprieur.com
www.culturechange.org
Energy
independence
Wood
fires that fit
-----------------------------------------------------
Welcome
to my new life. The fundamental work of this website
is to give me some thinking room to help with the ongoing
design my own life - and to comment on that design as
I go.
I am one of the many people who fall outside the "normal"
for a man my age. Many mechanisms of civilization seem
unsuited to me, or even to the people who fit "normal"
around me. So many processes in our country feed off
of us and are empty of what we assume they provide us.
Is insurance designed to help you? Is your life less
stressed for owning your own home? Is medical care,
safety, and debt the cornerstones of your bubble of
happiness? Why do we live this way? This is what I'm
thinking about and now in December 2004, acting on.
Is
it better to center our existence on a single point
geographically? To live vicariously at that one point,
my stick built home, living through TV and dreams, or
would it be better to move and to live in those places
that excite you, to go to where you are interested in
something? Do you want to put yourself there, or just
watch it on TV. Should you see the Grand Canyon or just
watch the movie? How often do I excitedly discuss last
night's TV shows with my co-workers. All the time. Until
now.
After
3 years of preparation and short trips, living in my
Safari Airstream, I'm now at the tipping point. A point
of my internal graph where my dismay, my terror at staying
still any longer in my life finally outweighs my fears
of doing something different. On my way.
There
is a fundamental divide between the people who want
to escape the restraints we all live in, and the people
who want to stay in harness. A well planned escape from
urbania and Logan's run requires jumping higher than
the walls of our cage. This takes courage and a large
amount of irritation or discomfort. By maybe we can
have the best of all worlds by constructing our lives
the way we wish them to be. I have some fear of becoming
a homeless bum if my theories don't prove out, and greater
fear that my nervousness will destroy the appreciation
of my experiences as I live them. That is part of my
finding the courage to try things that frighten me a
little bit.
|
