Day 911 (Daily Post)
Day 911. It is another one of those pseudo-sunny mornings here and I am getting off to a rather slow start but at least the solar panels are getting a wee bit of sun so that is a pleasant start to the day.
Yesterday's mowing of the 'yard' left me feeling pretty wiped out and although I tried to fall asleep early a big thunderstorm rolled in and it of course frightened those two dogs to the point of them shaking and hyperventilating which made falling to sleep a difficult prospect at best. They have continued to bark at the louder thunder claps and I keep encouraging them to do it because it seems a much better attitude to have than just feeling terrified of the loud rumbling that probably sounds extremely loud to their canine enhanced hearing.
Eventually I did fall asleep and with the rain cooling everything down and just the sound of it pattering down outside I slept rather deeply and although I had some rather bizarre dreams where I was once again wandering some post-apocalyptic landscape they were not stressful dreams. Mostly the dreams consisted of me and the dogs looking for a good place to build a homestead at and along the way we came across some old friends that joined us in our trek which was rather interesting because we ultimately devised a way to get off the planet and sail through the stars to find a new home. Like I said it was all rather bizarre but at least it was enjoyable.
Anyway while I was mowing yesterday I kept thinking about how skewed of a vision that folks often have of this sort of lifestyle and how they are often shocked to learn that I actually buy my groceries from a store instead of trying to subsist off eating grubs, worms and whatever else can be foraged from the woods and although I laugh a good bit about those sorts of misconceptions I also tend to wonder what sort of shape folks would be in both mentally and physically after they themselves tried to subsist on such a diet for even a week or two let alone a couple of years.
All of which got me to thinking about how when folks choose some lifestyle that does not conform to 'work, pay for things you will never own, drink, cook and bathe with recycled septic water, pay taxes and die with extreme amounts of unpaid healthcare bills, etcetera, etcetera, unfulfilling life ad infinitum...' that a different choice than all that equals more often than not a good bit of resentment towards those who choose something different, something that is more deserving of the terms 'life' and 'living' and while I totally understand just how important it is to validate and 'bolster up' the false facade of such an existence because it has been woefully 'normalized' and for good or for ill I cannot quite bring myself to empathize with those who have not even tried to live differently yet flounder on crying 'woe is me' every step of the way.
I am unsure where I am going with all that but suffice it to say that I am sorry/not-fucking-sorry for my lack of conformity and furthermore that with everything going on in the world these days I think that 'mental wellness' (i.e. being okay with what is going on) deserves the same stigmatizing that 'mental illness' has so often received.
Well I got into a bit more of a rant there than I have been letting myself lately which is of course 'fine and dandy' and all but what I am driving at is that without the actual courage to make changes then change will not occur especially in regards to the destructive lifestyle of over-consumption and the placement of material wealth above the well-being and lives of living creatures and the planet itself.
All that jazz aside I better wrap this up and start on the more tedious aspect of editing it all so that I can get on with my day and see what becomes of it now that I have gotten all of that out of my system. I should also probably finish drinking my espresso and get my mind itself fully awake because it seems that the barrier between the post-apocalyptic landscape of my dreams and the pre-apocalyptic days of my life is not much of a barrier at all but it is nice and a bit comforting to think that the two are even mildly disconnected from each other.
