In war and peace, family stays together…
Tag Archives: travel
Barbara’s bartering banter
Bartering as a Lifestyle
I’ve learned to live on very little money in order to support my lifestyle as an artist. I haven’t had medical insurance since 1985 and luckily I’m very healthy but whenever I have needs, such as dental work, and once, a doctor, I asked around and found someone I could barter with. I’ve bartered for airline tickets, amazing places to live, places to stay while I’m traveling overseas and this continent, and car repairs. I usually barter my art, but I’ve met people with skills such as massage, hairstyling, jewelry making, and bookkeeping, to name just a few, who have done well with barter. If you are willing to work, create art, or have something to trade, then you’ve got something you can barter with. I’ve found that there are many times people might not want to spend money but will barter.
When I quit my systems analyst job and didn’t want to be stressed out about money, as a single person I learned that caretaking other people’s property allowed me the freedom to make my art. This lifestyle has landed me in extremely beautiful places, with my rent, utilities and, depending on the situation, food, salaries, vehicles, and use of swimming pools, as part of the deal. On this blog site I intend to tell my stories as well as those I’m collecting from other people, and pass on some web sites that will help you meet up with other people interested in bartering.
In my twenties I traveled around the world and found wonderful opportunities for work exchanges along the way. In Australia I lived for a couple of years in the outback where I rented a house on a two hundred acre farm for the low rent of $80 a month in exchange for keeping an eye on my landlord’s cows. In Bodh Gaya, India I spent a couple of weeks in a Thai Buddhist monastery, in exchange I spent an hour a day helping one of the monks with his university studies. In Israel I lived on a kibbutz for three months and did a variety of jobs in exchange for everything I needed. I learned that honest, loyal, hard working people were really appreciated and could get jobs anywhere in the world.
In my thirties I finally settled down and worked as a computer programmer until I sold two of my short travel stories to a magazine and a piece of art that I’d created was accepted for an important juried show the City of Los Angeles was sponsoring. I quit my job and began looking for ways to survive as an artist, which in L.A. meant long-term house sitting and scenic painting for movies.
In my forties my first creative work exchange was as a scenic painter for the New Hope Theater in Pennsylvania. I spent the summer painting sets in the Pocono Mountains while living in a beautiful resort hotel. I stayed for two months in an apartment in Venice Beach, CA in exchange for doing all the black and white still photography for a video project an artist friend was working on. On vacation in Jamaica I met a woman who lived in a beautiful villa on a hillside overlooking the Carribean and ended up house sitting it for a week when she had to go away. While there I learned wood carving from a local artist.
One of my favorite work exchanges was for a real estate investor in Bel Air, CA. For three years I worked two days a week as his office assistant in exchange for a salary and a nice little apartment in one wing of his house. I had full use of the grounds and swimming pool. It was while living in Bel Air that I began carving large sculptures for the Treepeople Park in Beverly Hills. I finally left Bel Air to do a summer work exchange at the Avondale Forest Park in County Wicklow, Ireland where I carved a large sculpture (see photo above) from a famous tree that had died. After this experience many of my work exchanges were art related.
Several times a week I will update this site with these stories and many more. I’m hoping to interview Ryan McDonald of The One Red Paper Clip fame, have a piece on house swapping, do an article on business barter sites, and much more. Don’t get me wrong, money is great, but if you don’t have much, there are alternatives with bartering. World travel, living in millionaire homes, the sky’s the limit on what you can manifest.
You can see some of my work on these blog sites:
barbarayates-sculpture.blogspot.com
woodenbooks.blogspot.com
barbarayates-photos.blogspot.comIf you have questions to can contact me at: byates3347@gmail.com
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Barbara’s Bartering Blog
Surface Surfactants
Guin twisted her head around.
Although 200 marsyears had passed since she had lived on Earth, Guin still remembered what it felt like to walk the surface of Earth without an environmental protection suit on.
She had briefly worked with HAZMAT teams one summer, helping to eradicate a deadly trend amongst Earthlings of starting their own home laboratories to cook addictive substances such as meth. An unhealthy obsession with a momentary high. A synonym maker’s dream:
20/20 (“Clear Vision” Hawaii)
222 (Chicago)
417 (SW Missouri because of meth capital)
Agua
Albino Poo
Alffy
All Tweakend Long
Anny
Anything Going On
the attenborough (London; 11/29/07)
Artie (as in i, Boise, ID 7/30/09)
Bache Knock
Bache Rock
Bag Chasers
Baggers
Barney Dope
Batak (Philippine Street Name)
Bato
Bato-(Philippine Street Name)
Batu Kilat (Malaysia, it means shining rocks)
Batu or Batunas (Hawaii)
Batuwhore
Beegokes
Bianca
Bikerdope
Billy, Or Whizz,
(Britain – cartoon character called Billy Whizz who seemed to be always on the stuff!)
Bitch
Biznack
Blanco
Bling (LA, CA 8/12/09)
Blizzard
Blue Acid
Blue Funk, (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bomb
Booger
Boorit-Cebuano (Filipino Street Name)
Boo-Yah! (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Bottles (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Brian Ed
Buff Stick
Bugger Sugar
Buggs
Bumps
Buzzard Dust
Caca
Candy
Cankinstien
CC
Chach
ChaChaCha
Chalk
Chalk Dust
Chank
Cheebah
Cheese
Chicken Flippin
Chikin or Chicken
Chingadera
Chittle
Chizel
Chiznad
Choad
Chunkylove (Missouri)
Clavo
Clean out the chimney (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Coco
Coffee
Cookies
Cotton Candy (LA area)
CR (California Central Valley)
Crack Whore
Crank Is “Walk” & Coke Is “Talk.”
Crankster Gansters
Creek Rock (Sand Mountain, AL)
Cri,Cri (Mexican Border in Southwest Arizona)
Criddle
Cringe
Critty
Crizzy
Crothch Dope
Crow
Crunk
Crypto
Crysnax (LA area)
Crystal Meth
Crystalight
Cube
Debbie, Tina, And Crissy
Desoxyn (drug name for meth at the pharmacy)
Devil Dust
Devils Dandruff
Devils Drug
Dingles
Dirt
Dirty
Dizzy D
Dizzle (Missouri)
Dizzo (Missouri)
D-Monic Or D
Do Da
Doody
Doo-My-Lau (H.B.)
Dope
Drano
Dummy Dust
Dunk (LA, CA)
Dyno
Epimethrine
Epod
Eraser Dust
Ethyl-M
Evil Yellow
Fatch (Mexican Border In The Southwest Arizona Area)
Fedrin
Fil-Layed
Fire
Fizz Wizz
G (short for Glass or Go-fast)
G-unit (Los Angeles, CA 8/12/09)
Gab
Gackle-a Fackle-a
Gagger (So. Calif.)
Gak
Gas
Gear Or Get Geared Up
Gemini
George as in george glass from the Brady Bunch movie (CA 8/17/09)
Gina or “I want to talk to Gina tonight” (Calif; 11/18/07)
Glass
Go
Go Fast
Go-ey
Go-Go
Go-Go Juice
Gonzales (Like the cartoon “Speedy”)
Goop
Got Anything
Grit
Gumption
Gyp
Hawaiian Salt
Hank
High Speed Chicken Feed
High Riders (Used in New Zealand 7/31/07)
Highthen
Hillbilly Crack
Hippy Crack
Holy Smoke (Hong Kong)
Homework (This is because homework is generally done on paper which had lines)
Honk the BoBo (Southern MD)
Hoo
Horse Mumpy (Tampa, Florida)
Hydro
Hypes
Ibski
Ice
Ice Cream
Icee
Ish
Izice
Jab
Jasmine
Jenny Crank Program, (jenny crank diet) (Seattle, WA 11/4/07)
Jetfuel
Jib
Jib Nugget
Jibb Tech Warrier
Jinga
Juddha
Juice
Junk (San Diego)
Kibble
Killer
KooLAID
Kryptonite
Lamer
Laundry Detergent
Lemon Drop
Life
Lily
Linda
Livin the Dream (Alberta Canada)
Lost Weekend (Bay Area SF)
Love
Low
Lucille
M Man
Magic
Meth
Meth Monsters
Methaine
Methandfriend
Methandfriendsofmine
Methanfelony
Methatrim
Methmood
Method
Moon Juice (Missouri)
Motivation in a bag (Cleveland or Columbus, Ohio; (11/19/07)
Nazi Dope
Ned
Newday
Night Train (11/7/07)
No Doze
Nose Candy
On A Good One
(New Zealand)’place where meth is made is a “P lab”
Patsie
Peaking
Peanut Butter
Peel Dope
Phazers
Phets
Philopon (East Asia)
Pieta
Pink
Poison
Pookie (LA area)
Poop
Poop’d Out
Poor Man’s Cocaine (Philippines)
Pootananny
Powder
Powder Monkeys
Powder Point
Project Propellant
Puddle
Pump (Bay Area SF)
Quarter Tee Bag
Quartz (8/4/09)
Q’d
Quick (Canada)
Quill
Rachet Jaw
Rails
Rails
Rank
Redneck Heroin (Atlanta)
Richie Rich
Rip
Rock
Rock
Rocket Fuel
Rocky Mountain High
Rosebud
Rudy’s
Rumdumb
Running Pizo
Sack
Sam’s Sniff
Sarahs
Satan Dust
Scante (Hispanic Population in Southern California)
Scap
Schlep Rock
Scooby Snax
Scud
Scwadge
Shab
Sha-Bang
Shabs (San Francisco)
Shabu
Shamers
Shards
Shit
Shia (Missouri)
Shiznack, Shiznac, Sciznac or Shiznastica
Shiznittlebang
Shiznit
Shiznitty
Shizzo
Shnizzie Snort
Shwack
Skeech
Sketch
Ski
Skitz
Sky Rocks
Sliggers
smack
Smiley Smile
Smurf Dope
Smzl
Snaps
Sniff
Snow, Motivation (Colorado Springs, CO)
Space Food
Spaceman
Spagack
Sparacked
Sparked
Sparkle
Speed Racer
Spin, Spin, Spin
Spinack
Spindarella
Spinney Boo
Spinning
Spishak
Spook
Sprack
Sprizzlefracked
Sprung (Mississippi)
Spun Ducky Woo
Squawk
Stallar
Sto-Pid
Styels
Sugar
Suger
Sweetness
Swerve
Syabu (pronounced “shabu” – SE Asia)
Ta’doww (Southwest Area of SD Ca.)
Talkie
Tasmanian Devil
Tenner
The New Prozac
The White House
Tical
TIK (1/27/08 – South Africa)
T. D. – for – Tink Dust (as in: ”Tinkerbell”, from Disney)
Talkie
Time (Atlanta, GA)
Tina Or Teena
Tish – Shit Backwards (C.V. Calif. area)
Tobats
Toots
Torqued
Trippin Trip
Truck Stop Special
Tubbytoast
Tutu (Hawaii)
Twack
Twacked Out
Tweak
Tweedle Doo
Tweek (A Methamphetamine-Like Substance)
Tweezwasabi
Twistaflexin
Twiz
Twizacked
Ugly Dust
Vanilla Pheromones
Wake
Way
We We We
Whacked
White Bitch
White Ink
White Junk
White Lady
White Pony (Ridin’ the White Pony)
White
Whip (Western Australia 2/3/09)
Who-Ha
Work: I think that came about from it being my dealers “work” (1/22/08 Arlington, TX)
Wigg
Xaing
Yaaba (Thailand)
Yammer Bammer
Yank
Yankee
Yay
Yead Out
Yellow Barn
Zingin
Zip
Zoiks
Zoom
Freedom to choose is not always about making choices to enhance one’s longevity.
Guin leaned her head against the back of her helmet.
The circulation fans in her suit, linked with sensors on the outside of the suit, simulated Martian winds blowing across her skin and through her hair.
She felt the dry, gritty Martian air on her neck and smiled.
Memories of an early summer day in north Alabama sprang to the forefront of her thoughts.
She had tagged along with a drug enforcement task group as an advisor, her expertise on that particular day a tangential twist on her knowledge of rocket propulsion.
A lab hidden on the local Army base, assigned to explore alternative uses of popular street drugs, wanted access to unusual combinations, hoping to find the one mix of ingredients that could be used on another planet without cause or concern for breaking social rules or violating local laws.
The lab scientists concluded long ago that illicit laboratories were often the most innovative, their access to raw materials limited not by annual government funding but by the implied value of their product, value derived by addicts who often died as willing guinea pigs, a feat no military, government or commercial lab was overtly willing to take.
Guin’s mission was to ascertain the controlled explosive capabilities of the booby traps set up around labs in the backwood lairs of Appalachian moonshiner descendants, trained in ancient techniques and modern warfare to protect their territory against invaders both foreign and domestic.
She, too, wanted to find the perfect propellant.
However, she did not know why.
The company she worked for had only recently hired her and, like all new employees, put her through a trial period to test her willingness to do whatever it took to get the job done and to keep her eyes and ears shut while on joint assignment with other companies and unnamed tactical government agencies.
The HAZMAT suit she wore that day was nowhere near as sophisticated as her current suit on Mars.
Yes, it had a communications system and a rudimentary heating/cooling unit but it easily ripped on sharp objects and did not keep track of her vital signs; its external sensors added up to the detection of a few hazardous chemicals and that was it. Otherwise, she and the team relied on portable gear to deal with expected hazardous situations, which often led to mistakes in the field such as when what they thought was a harmless 55-gallon drum of wax turned out to be a temperature-based state-change toxic fume bomb.
Guin wandered across the short Martian field, kicking up dust and sending small pebbles arching in a path in front of her.
She knew she was supposed to leave this area off-limits but had forgotten why, turning off her connection to the ISSA Net to let her thoughts meander without making meaningful connections for other Nodes on this planet and elsewhere in the Inner Solar System.
However, her telescopic vision locked on to one of the pebbles she’d kicked.
Its shape was unnatural.
This far out from the colony, the chance of a mechanical part falling off a lander and bouncing out here was next to zero.
But it was not zero.
Guin picked up the donut-shaped “pebble” and turned it over.
The visual chemical signature on the surface of the rock returned her to the memory of the HAZMAT team’s discovery.
“We are not alone.”
It wasn’t just that the meth lab cookery they found was way too complicated for the average unemployed lab tech to assemble from parts acquired on the old Internet.
None of the equipment had ever existed before.
All of this found in three mobile homes pushed together, a few rusted pieces of metal siding welded over the rooftops to give the appearance of a “triple wide,” ratty pink fiberglass insulation dangling between precariously-stacked cinder blocks in the crawlspace underneath, but the insides of the mobile homes were cleanly gutted and replaced with unearthly contraptions.
Guin squeezed the Martian donut in her hand. It did not crumble like the other pieces of sandstone under her boots.
Guin had wanted to take a few samples with her from the meth lab but was removed from the building along with everyone else but a few guards.
She was driven back to her office and debriefed about what she saw.
Instructed never to say anything or write a single word about that day, Guin had nearly forgotten about it. She wondered if she should reconnect to the ISSA Net and search for clues about that day but she chose not even to inform the secure Nodes on the ISSA Net what she was thinking about.
Guin had long ago accepted that she only knew what she knew and might never know everything she wanted to learn about.
But she was going to keep filling in the gaps.
That last shipment that was delivered to the colony was designated for this area.
Had she wandered here accidentally or on purpose?
Who had determined that the shipment should be set up here?
What was in the shipment?
Did those who packed the shipment know she was in the area and, if so, did they realize she had been in the party that came upon what first looked like a den of squalor on Brindlee Mountain only to discover the greatest mystery in the second decade of the 21st century?
She was going to find out!
On the way to Mars…
For a long time, I dedicated time to managing my image, an extension of living in a community where worrying about what your neighbours thought of you was considered important (an extension of the group dynamics of social animals), which was handed to me by my parents and such.
We aren’t removed from the tribal characteristics of our ancestors — we just think we are.
There’s nothing the matter with wanting to please ourselves through the use of our “mirror neurons” with which we naturally mimic one another.
In other words, I’m telling myself it’s okay to be all the parts of me — including the flesh-and-bones member of one species — even the ones I’ve told goodbye!
With that said, I am back to watering the seeds of the future.
Planting ideas that have only 12852 sols (13205 days) to reseed the next generation.
Time to shop for more parts at Radio Shack to help reduce inventory at the local store, not knowing which one will be closed to keep Radio Shack the corporation solvent.
What shall I build next?
On the way to Mars…
Mourning has broken
As sheep graze the green grass of Ireland in the month of March, not more than a week away from Saint Patrick’s Day, here on this third planet in orbit around the local star we call our Sun, a collection of cells looks at itself and smiles.
Now, what is a smile?
Smile, n.: A subset of collection of cells sharing signals to coordinate an activity that similar cell collections recognise automatically.
Could the definition be more generic?
Perhaps.
What is a smile but a symbol and what is a symbol but a clash of simple meanings?
Today, for the first time, I held my smiling great-nephew in my hands and flew him through the air like Superman.
It takes one to know one.
In that moment, I realised that I am who I am, wealthy enough to retire on the interest of a modest trust fund of my own making, happy to be the slightly rude and crude fellow who occasionally acts like a gentleman in front of women who want to be treated like ladies but who otherwise is not a core member of the type of folks who would be associated with the “church lady“.
I have finished another round of recovering from the loss of my father, which includes releasing the constraints upon myself that I had learned to keep subdued in order not to feed and incur the wrath of Dad when he was alive.
I am not a weekly churchgoing kind of guy but I am willing to support those who are, having, with my wife, pledged to donate half a million dollars to the summer church camp where she and I met as 12 year-old “rising seventh graders,” neither one of us being daily Bible readers or church attendees but friends with those who are.
To those who are, I am grateful for their influence upon my youth. I know that many of them would love for me to join them in service to the community to promote religious teachings in action.
But that is not who I am. I am a child of a universe of which our cultural/religious teachings are limited to a single solar system.
I will allow the teachings to continue to be a part of my set of states of energy but I believe it is a subset of which the set includes stuff unassociated with our species and its methods of survival on and around Earth.
I am healing from unintentional cuts in the thought patterns I was following that the cuts interrupted — cuts known as psychological damage in one respect and unique personality traits in another.
I am who I am because of who I was when I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be, exactly.
I am a collection of cells influenced by a lot of subcultures.
But again, that is from the viewpoint of a single planet.
From the viewpoint of the known universe, our species is invisible.
I practice telling myself this over and over because I choose to equal the influence upon me from others (“others” being any stimuli outside the immediate circle of influence that constitutes my set of states of energy (this collection of cells) that moves around the planet) by repeating to myself what I believe.
I have healed from these wounds, these cuts, these interruptions that redirected the forward momentum of multiple personalities in conflict that comprise the entity known as me.
I have reevaluated my risk aversion levels woven together as characters/masks/personalities/compartmentalised responses to external stimuli.
In the midst of healing that started when my brother in-law died in 2006, continued through my midlife retirement, caring for my mother in-law as she aged, got lonely, left her hometown, moved to our town and died, then rapidly followed by my father’s declining health and death, I resurfaced the core personality traits I had suppressed for the sake of others.
I am blossoming late in life, changing my personality feedback loops to pay attention to when I’m reacting for the sake of others and cutting off those reactions, replacing them with self-affirming actions instead, rather than living in the past working hard[er] to suppress myself when it surfaced unexpectedly.
I am no longer living for others and letting others live for themselves, choosing neither to lead or follow others.
I am responsible to myself.
All while giving leave of the self for other goals that may or may not include me (especially after I’m dead and gone).
I have reached the point where achieving these goals means leaving people and ideas behind that I was trying to please for no other reason than I didn’t know what else to do because I waited for permission to tell them goodbye, permission I was never going to receive from anyone else but me.
I felt like an interstellar spaceship being held in place by the roots of an extinct dead grass patch.
I gave myself permission to once again be my natural self, weird in some circumstances and accepting of comparable weirdness from others.
Releasing the fear of being seen and judged by the imaginary thought patterns of others in the subcultural religious teachings of my youth.
The release was a relief and a lifting of carrying a burden that was not mine to own.
I stopped worrying about pleasing people with whom I don’t hang out regularly anymore but have friended in social media circles.
In other words, I want to joke about butt plugs shaped like the bust of Vladimir Putin but not when I’m getting blasted with “God is so good to me and my family” messages all the time.
So, all I can do is say goodbye to the people/family in the subcultural religious teachings of my youth and let them be happy in their subcultural circles of which I no longer actively participate.
No better way to be me than to use someone else singing “I Gotta Be Me.”
Zip plus four at five
Lee stood on top of the concrete parapet, examining the old ruins of a courtyard, trees decades old — sweetgum, redbud, mimosa — splitting the pathway pavers, now covered with green and brown patches — moss and lichen.
Hands in a pair of faded blue denim jeans, he looked up at stone columns, chipped and cracked.
A turkey vulture circled overhead.
Lee sighed. A few minutes earlier he’d found a glass-enclosed bookcase full of handwritten notebooks, most of the ink and pencil scratching barely legible.
A mailing envelope addressed from Troy State University, stamped by the government bulk mail office with a date of May 18 ’97, contained a voting ballot that had been faxed on (TUE) 05.20.1997 16:36:
1997 ALABAMA SPORTSWRITERS BALLOT
AMATEUR ATHLETE OF THE YEAR
Please award 3 points to your first choice, 2 points to your second
choice and 1 point to your third choice.
IMPORTANT: Deadline for voting is MAY 21…fax your ballot to
(205) 345-1260…
___ James Cason, Birmingham Southern, basketball.
___ Shalonda Enis, University of Alabama, women’s basketball.
___Tim Hudson, Auburn University, baseball.
___ Pratt Lyons, Troy State University, football.
___Dwayne Rudd, University of Alabama, football.
___ Meredith Willard, University of Alabama, Gymnastics.
1997? Where had the time gone?
Lee had stood on the same parapet in 1997, examining not the ruins of a long-gone civilisation but, instead, the height of victory, himself a sportswriter covering local stories in northeast Alabama, looking for positive, uplifting stories to write about grade school children and their athletic accomplishments despite hardship or because of it.
He made real as an adult the childhood dreams at five years of age of writing for a newspaper.
How many more dreams had he created in youth not yet realised…
He reached for a mug resting on a one-metre tall overturned garden vase and sipped the last of the British tea, a weak concoction squeezed from a teabag that had been steeped too many times to count, the actual flavour of the tea more a memory than a sensation on his tongue, a simple excuse to boil and filter the water before drinking.
Lee sat on the vase and leaned his head back, feeling the sun’s warmth on his face, neck and upper chest, the sunny winter day a respite from weeks of hard snow in north Alabama.
He knew the past and had a heightened awareness of his future, as sharp and clear as a stainless steel knife, an antique cutting device worth more than water in some parts of his home planet, two of which he’d found at the bottom of the bookcase and tucked into his right knee sock.
A sense of calm passed through his body and he smiled.
Although the first few decades of the 21st century had challenged Lee’s sense of place in the universe, he had remained the same, true to himself first and foremost, using humorous deflection and distraction to move obstacles out of his path.
Some days, he did not move at all. A month might pass before he completed a single step.
He accepted the role of chaos in his life without question.
Eventually, he quit questioning why he had chosen a particular route through intertwining and backtracking pathways, trusting his instincts enhanced by experience.
He stood up and turned around, facing the wooded glade that had once been a meditation garden.
Lee bowed in reverence, in deference, in honour, in memory of this place in another time, the end of the last century.
He closed his eyes.
He centered his thoughts, circling them in an imaginary mantra, a sphere that used to serve as an impenetrable shield disguised as personality masks and emotional glue forming the appearance of a logical whole.
Lee meditated upon the misconception of the meaning of time.
He let go of conscious thought as he quietly told himself that time was only the recognition of change, just like taking a smaller or bigger breath would have a ripple effect in his immediate surroundings but little else.
There was a sol when he lived on Earth and looked at a countdown clock showing 13228 days to go.
Lee recalled thoughts of friendships in flux, a constantly interweaving web of changing relationships which spun a cocoon around him that made him feel warm and loved but which he had to keep stepping out of on his quest to get to Mars with the very same friends in the next century.
A leader stays focused on his vision, never letting gravity stopping him from achieving escape velocity when an unexplored galaxy is within his electromechanical cloned arm’s reach.
Me, myself, and I…sigh…
‘Tis sad to see that my wish — to have some dreadful disease that would end my life — has never been fulfilled.
Instead, my general practitioner tells me I am getting healthier as I get older because I have taken good care of my body.
What the hell?
You mean I won’t die of natural causes any time soon?
I wander the wilderness of this planet that we pretend is tamed with concrete sidewalks, asphalt driveways and paved parkways, never able to do more with the sets of states of energy than what they are, never able to get outside of this universe.
I shake my fist at the sky, shouting that my subculture is just not enough to make me happy — I have killed with my bare hands, I have tasted infinity, there is no love for the comfortable confines of a subculture which never truly contained me.
During the month or so of much-needed/wanted/desired self-reflection upon the threshold of self-actualisation, I assimilate my alliterative allegories and wander aimlessly.
Twixt which tweets, texts or twigs do I twist?
Having held death in my hands, there is little more to call my own.
Having stood on the edge of the abyss, there is little in the normal world that surprises me.
Yet, I want more.
I,I,I wantwantwant moremoremore.
I give the members of my childhood subculture their happy connections to our shared symbol sets, telling them I’ll perpetuate their beliefs for them and make them believe I believe them, too, if that makes them happy.
I have padded about in this comfort zone, lining the nest financially so much that I almost can’t get out of the nest or at least have raised the walls high enough to give me pause.
If only I had the impetus to generate enough income to construct a ladder or a means to helicopter myself out of this nest…
But for what purpose?
What is the core self, if there is one, the core burning desire to achieve something I am not achieving or do not see myself achieving, from this base of operations, this dilapidated modified ranch house with cathedral ceiling propped on a hillside over a crawlspace?
I am an amateur philosopher/maker/poet/writer who has been able to live below his means long enough and live in relative peace with a partner, his fellow 12-year old summer church camp attendee turned penpal turned wife of 27+ years, so that I’m closer to being stuck at home with both of us in our retirement years wondering what we’re going to do with the rest of our lives.
In other words, everything well within the normal range of people belonging to our subculture.
That, my fellow chickadees, is a revelation that hits me again and again about once a year, from when I was five, wondering how many more of the clueless adults around me I had to keep putting up with (and still wondering why!) to when I stood at the front of the church as my bride walked up the aisle to me and knowing that committing to marriage was the worst betrayal of myself that would ever happen (because I do not believe in marriage) and so on.
What I want out of life is to eliminate the self, not MYself, but the concept of the individual as more important than as just another set of states of energy generated by that burning ball of cosmic dust we call the Sun.
Then and only then will we see what the universe is, will we be able to move beyond our Earthcentric thoughts and onto the Next Great Thing that has nothing to do with the popular image of gadgets and gizmos to sell on the open market under protective cover of undercover government agents and privacy-intruding marketing departments.
Yet, how do we move a species to build spaceships for Martian settlement without peddling a lot of stuff on amazon.com and through paypal?
How do we promote the concept of conspicuous consumption in order to siphon off thousandths of a penny per sale for space exploration without overselling the concept of the individual?
Perhaps I shouldn’t care. Perhaps allowing the religious concept of the soul in society is equivalent to allowing the economic concept of the consumer in society?
What, then, of the rise of the atheist consumer? How do I address the issue of the atheist in the future where we need pooled resources to seed celestial bodies?
Euphemisms and symbology, that’s how!
Xemit
Three sounds my ears-to-brain connection cannot easily distinguish from the other: the roaring sound of a jet flying high overhead, the sound of hard plastic wheels of a baby carrier my neighbour pushes down the street, the sound of the heat pump through the house walls.
Soon, I shall be back on course, having achieved an important goal, and can return my character Lee to his Martian settlements.
What is the difference between meditation and prayer?
My GP M.D. gave me a book titled The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
As I flip through it, I ask if the difference between meditation and prayer is like the difference between Ubuntu Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
Since everything around me is the illusion I want it to be, then I get to choose to say what differentiates meditation from prayer, taking into consideration all the billions of folks like me in order to keep my illusion in relative peace with itself, more and more free of unnecessary conflict as the measured changes between sets of states of energy we call days pass by.
Understanding that the semipermeable membranes we call cultures filter how the changes pass from one set of billion to another.
In this meditative moment, I let contradictory thought patterns pass through each other with ease, able to watch them reverberate out of phase with each other secure in my beliefs that who I am is who I am and who you are is who you are, no need to feed natural levels of insecurity, happy to build up our healthy level of support for our comfort zones.
I used to fear not having the right answer for questions, quite possibly due to my school-age training when being a people pleaser meant wanting to provide the learned responses to questions taught to us by our authoritative, grownup teachers, and get immediate approval from them for my support of the teachers’ participation in the education system upon which they depended for their livelihood, mental health and social acceptance.
The path toward my eventual demise takes many detours.
Luckily, despite some of my unhealthy habits, I am, at 51+ years of age, healthier than I should be.
According to new guidelines, there seems to be no more reason for me to take the blood pressure and cholesterol lowering medication that had been prescribed for my former unhealthy habits.
If I paid for three months’ worth of the medicine and have used a month of it, should I go ahead and finish what I have, throw it away or give it to someone who might could use it (I love the colloquialism of that last phrase)?
Regardless, it is, as the whisper said, time for me to step up to the plate and be a man.
Tonight, I take an important step in that direction, having postponed this step because of a habit in my childhood of being ornery to keep a small distance between myself and my father’s stern shadow hanging over me, matching passive-aggressive response to passive-aggressive paternal discipline system.
What happens next is a series of decisions that divert/reduce childish/immature behaviour and encourage childlike wonder/amazement in accomplishing mature tasks.
All while focused on a major event 13286 days from now.
How will I include my sardonic/sarcastic/wry humour in this new direction I’m taking? Perhaps by saying it’s time I pass the zeitgeist humour making to others so I can spend more time on timeless issues in which humour is incorporated at a less obvious level, in the whole shape of society rather just in sarcastic throwaway headline news.
I don’t have a ready answer and I’m learning it’s okay to say I don’t really know what’s going to happen next.
I am secure in knowing uncertainty is a key component of my future.
Is that the difference between meditation and prayer?
Is meditation simply accepting the here-and-now as it is and prayer a request for a certain change to occur?
No, that’s not it. In both cases, gratefulness is accepting what is and being thankful for it. Meditation may be a request for peace in a troubled life.
How about if I just lean my head back and take a quick nap?
Easy to do business with, the endless saga
Yesterday evening, I sat down in the Chan Auditorium on the campus of UAH (the University of Alabama in Huntsville) to listen to Frederiek Toney, Corporate Vice President and President, Global Ford Customer Service Division, alumnus of both UAH and Lee High School in Huntsville, Alabama.
Fred’s talk was interesting and underscored several topics of personal interest to me, which I’ll get to later on.
However, one point stood out more than the others: his emphasis on “you can’t manage a secret,” which he repeated more than once.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Ford, originally started in the United States of America, is a global competitor.
Should I be concerned about Ford’s electronics offering backdoor access to governmental agencies? Will car owners have to sign EULAs (end user licence agreements) that state something like the following:
READ THESE NOTICES CAREFULLY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ACCEPT THESE CONDITIONS, RETURN THE VEHICLE IN ORIGINAL PACKAGING WITH ALL OTHER ITEMS INCLUDED WITH THE VEHICLE TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE AND YOUR MONEY WILL BE REFUNDED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE APPLICABLE RETURN POLICY OF THE PLACE OF PURCHASE.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE: As part of Ford’s quality assurance analysis, this vehicle automatically sends anonymous, non-personally identifiable system information to Ford (and/or other entities as volunteered for or required by law) upon first approach, when the vehicle attempts to connect to an electronic network such as the Internet, and periodically thereafter. It also automatically searches for updates for your vehicle. Personal information may be gathered, retrieved and sent in accordance with applicable laws in your jurisdiction at any place and any time. See details in the Ford End User Licence Agreement included with your vehicle.
The software products preinstalled in your vehicle are copyrighted products. Please carefully read all of the licence agreements furnished with each product because it may send anonymous/personal data not only to the product manufacturer but also to Ford and/or other entities as volunteered for or required by law.
Ford and its affiliates are not responsible for the accuracy and/or use of data stored or collected about your vehicle. Any and all disputes will be resolved through the mandatory and binding arbitration policy which went into effect the moment you expressed interest in this vehicle.
You only have to be 10% smarter than your tools
The Entrepreneurs Club announced a new contest today, specifically designed for youths aged 6-16. Five winners will be awarded an all-expense paid trip to the annual Entrepreneurs Club, where the winners will be encouraged to pitch their dream projects for potential VC funding; alternatively, they will be given a small budget to develop a marketing plan to pitch their dream projects via crowdfunding.
The contest participants will attempt to accomplish the following goals:
- Design an autonomous rover*. (One winner will be announced for the best autonomous rover design.)
- Launch the rover into the upper atmosphere with a weather balloon**. (One winner will be announced for the best rover launch design.)
- Land the rover***. (One winner will be announced for the best rover landing design.)
- Retrieve the rover from its predetermined rendezvous point****. (One winner will be announced for the best rover rendezvous point design).
An overall winner will be announced that has shown the best combination of the most innovative and/or accurate achievement of the goals listed above. In addition to the all-expense paid trip, the overall winner will be allowed to recruit new team members from any of the other contest winners or contest participants to pitch dream projects (primary team size may not exceed seven members).
*The rover must have onboard the following capabilities:
- Self-powered — may be any combination of fuel cell, ultracapacitor, nonrechargeable/rechargeable [alkaline, NiMH, NiCad, LiPo, nuclear, etc.] battery, wind, solar cell, or other means clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
- Guidance control system — may be a combination of GPS, 3D visual mapping, solar, magnetic, or other means clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
- Data logging system — must have a means to record location data and broadcast location data periodically, no less than once a minute (location data may include GPS coordinates, geotagged/timestamped photos or other means (see number 4 below) to record and show the rover’s current location), keeping onboard its total journey information or other means of remote storage of data logging information clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
- Environmental measurement and collection tools — may be a combination of air/land/water temperature, humidity, water salinity/pH, atmosphere/soil/water contents, biological sampling, or other means clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
- Additional features will be allowed as long as they are clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
- NOTE: Keep in mind that the rover may arrive at the rendezvous point by air, land and/or water. The most/efficient use of all three will increase the chance of winning for the contest participant(s).
** A list of preapproved weather balloon suppliers will be provided.
*** The rover landing may include the following:
- Balloon remnants still attached.
- Balloon remnants detached.
- Parachute deployment.
- Self-guided UAV (powered or unpowered).
- Descent deceleration thrusters.
- Aquatic vehicle capabilities (surface/submarine).
- Additional landing features will be allowed as long as they are clearly documented and demonstrated to the contest judges.
****The rendezvous point must be preapproved by the contest judges before the rover is launched. The time from launch of the rover to retrieval of the rover at the rendezvous point must take no longer than 48 hours. The contest participants and their preapproved equipment must be in full view of the contest judges and/or their official representatives during the 48-hour period.
treetrunkdings 