Life in the Slow Lane
I’ve been swamped as of late, though a lot of what I’ve been busy with is spinning my wheels. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut and instead of working on building connections, I’m spinning my wheels on GSD. I have yet to get my carport cleared out, I’ve yet to rearrange my shed to my liking to set up for a workshop, and I’ve yet to do a lot of projects I’ve done a lot of talking about. I’m still planning on doing rabbits, but without my carport, I don’t have a place to put them. I’m still planning on doing a computer repair side hustle, but I need to buy some equipment and wire up my shed. I’m still planning on planting fruit trees, but I haven’t bought any saplings yet. I still want to do raised wicking beds.
Many of my issues have to do with being swamped with bills. Another aspect is time. I’m now working 40 hours a week at a job 80-90 minutes drive from home. By the time I get to the weekend I’m exhausted. It’s no excuse, of course, I still need to get this shit done and I know the more I put it off the more unlikely I am actually to do any of it.
I would, however, like to thank everyone who has been boosting my podcast episodes via Lightning. I’ve been getting them, and it’s an honor to know that someone (or a group of someones) thinks my content is worth even some of your treasure. It’s really been making me think about doing at least an occasional episode, however, I want to be able to devote quality time to that and not just throw some shit together. You all are worth more effort than that. That being said, I want to leave you all with one thing to think about over the next however long it’ll be before a new episode is out:
If you are truly in the freedom movement, then not only can you be individualistic, but you can still be altruistic. Let me explain. Whatever you empower the government to do to someone else, you empower them to do to you. Conversely, whatever you disempower the government to do to you, you disempower them from doing to others. Therefore, those of us truly and actively working to get ourselves out from under the yoke of slavery aren’t just doing it for ourselves, we are doing it for everyone else, as well. I think someone coined the phrase, “Enlightened Self-Interest”. By making it so we can do something, we’re making it so all can do that something. Go out, build your intentional communities. You don’t have to all live together. You just have to work together. We make ourselves stronger, and more independent, by building resilience into our lives. You don’t have to raise all of your own everything. You just need robust connections to be able to trade and barter. You make connections, and you cultivate them, and you make more connections because people move away, or die, or stop doing the thing you relied on them for. Of course, you don’t stop helping, but you find other ways to not only supply your needs, and to meet the needs of your intentional community. Your ever-growing, ever-changing, sometimes long-distance intentional community. The only borders that define us are our property lines. Everything else is an anachronism that has long since lived past its usefulness.
