fractalnavel

seemed like a decent day to post.  man, i haven't done anything since christmas.  no laundry, no work outs - finally getting to it all today...  dang shoulder just seems to keep getting worse, not sure what to do.

*whine*

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craig sent along a link to Bruce Sterling: State of the World, 2009, and that started me off onto a two and a half week intensive reading "program" on sustainable economies & lifestyles, aka peak oil, survivalism and The End of the World as We Know It ^TM. basically what i learned was that i'm gonna die - sooner rather than later, and after a good deal of uncertainty and suffering.

not that this is really any news to me. it was pretty apparent twenty years ago even from random bits & pieces of information.  i was just never sure what could be done about it, at any scale from global to personal.  coulda woulda shoulda - gotta deal with the here & now.

there's a lot of material related to this on the web of varying quality, as usual.  the best jumping off point for me was dmitry orlov's stuff; he brings an interesting perspective to the current state of affairs, having been through the soviet version of it twenty years ago.  he's more focused on pragmatics than mere doomsaying, and community rather than isolationism.  read the articles linked to in the sidebar, and some of the linked blogs as well - there's not many, and the ones there are a good selection.

anyway, i still need to digest this, not that there's a lot of time left.  i pretty much want to stick with actions that would be worthwhile to take even if the future was purely rosy.  if i want a self-sufficient lifestyle, especially for eventual retirement, gotta start now.  no need to be extreme about it, but certainly an elimination of unnecessary dependencies makes sense.  problem is, i'm in the wrong place to start.

well, just need to apply the usual project approach to this.  i do have some skills, the ability to identify and acquire new ones being the most important in this context.  and it will go from there...  more updates to come, i'm sure.

one personal observation: while immersed in this topic, the advertisement on tv, and other events, seemed downright surrealistic.  things are coming down around our ears, while the tube runs merrily on, as if nothing was happening.  oh, there's a mention of troubles, but then bang, onto next news item. the cognitive dissonance has been stunning.

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somewhere near the end of that i got sidetracked for a day or two into some mormonism reading.  bottom line: yeah, it's a cult.  somewhat benign, compared to many others, but a cult nonetheless.  same applies to numerous other organizations, religions, academics, corporations, entire nations...  mental and emotional abuse, deception and secrecy, in the name of god or an idea or any goal - sorry, not a good thing.  of course, cultishness is a continuum; few groupings are exempt.

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let's see, what else has been happening.  new national administration, sure.  pretty impressed with the first few days.  been watching news and various talk shows (moyers, rose), and there are a lot of popping eyeballs.

i gotta admit, i got a little teary at some points during the inaugural speech.  took me a while to figure out why, since the language wasn't all that evocative, nothing earth shaking was being said, just good straight talk - and that was it.  after all these years of outright idiocy from the previous holder of that office, it was the relief from the sheer humiliation and frustration of having to live with that jerk as the public face of a what could still be a great nation.  the tears were a returning of a sense of pride that i hadn't even been aware that i had lost.  not chest-thumping, nationalistic pride, but pride as a human, that's all - not the subhuman crap we've taken for the last eight years. 

the contrast between bush and obama is breathtaking in just about every way.  god knows where we'll be in days, months or years, but even just a few days of decency and honesty ^[1] makes a world of difference.  i had some serious reservations about obama, and really, he seemed to be missing the point early on in many issues.  but he learned!  my god - the complete, asinine foolishness of "staying the path" when all evidence says otherwise.  and not only that, but shit - much the same undertakings could have been attempted, but carried off far better, if that honesty and willingness to learn had been in place.

so - mccain or clinton ?  at the moment, i'm glad it was neither of them.  that's a change from my earlier opinion.  what the fuck - let's give the new guy a chance.  can't be a whole lot worse than the last century of bozos to date.

^[2]

i dunno - was that only more cognitive dissonance ?

^[1] well, apparent honesty at this point.  we'll find out later - much later.

^[2] data from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/popularity.php