Return

Interestingly, I was unable to find this blog shortly after I created it. I just now stumbled upon it while checking out the possibility of creating a new blog! Weird...but then, computers and I never did have a good relationship.

So, welcome back to me, I guess.

I should have renamed this blog. It turns out that there is some kind of band or something with the same name. That's why I couldn't find it again after I created it—I just kept coming up with websites for someone else. I gave up, figuring that the electronosphere simply swallowed my blog whole.

I'm still working for the company that snoops into our private virtual lives, so I'm still not free to use my actual name here. That sucks.

I just got back from a vacation that, while it could have gone better, was still better than the life I lead at home. Vacations always remind me, in no uncertain terms, that I need to turn my life around while have life left to change. I'm late middle age, so I don't have a lot of time for big changes, and it's flat out too late for some.

What I want seems so simple and so cheap, and yet it it is so very far out there that I question whether it is attainable at all. I don't want material riches—what would I do with an excess of expensive material goods, given that I have no personal vanity, no desire for luxury, and no need to impress anyone? I don't need to be on the hunt for a romantic relationship—such relationships get in the way of the things I want to do and that I find more important, and I am way past the physical needs stuff. What little thoughts I have about attaining personal power are all wrapped up in the idea that I could use that power to fight effectively for the environment, education, social justice, and all those other liberal ideas that too many people find repellent.

What I want is a small self-sufficiency farm with enough income to get the goods that I cannot produce myself. I want to be free to work on my art. I want to live green and off the grid, in harmony with nature as a good steward. I want my lifestyle to be a model of how people can live well without excess and without brutalizing the world.

The only thing keeping me from that is the money to buy a piece of arable land.

Money, and not even very much of it. But, working where I do, living the life I have to live to keep that job and a roof over my head, dealing with the economy that we have, I can't save anything toward that piece of land. I can't even keep my basic bills paid on time, much less pay off old debts that ruin my credit rating. I'm stuck. Stuck, like so many other people.

Hell, I would be happier if I could just work in a job that didn't make me feel like crap every time I walk through the door of my work place. I don't mind the tasks that I do there, but I hate the company and everything that is wrong in our society that it stands for. I'm not afraid to work. If I were, would want to be a farmer, probably one of the toughest jobs in existence? A job that made me feel good to get out of bed everyday, doing something that I enjoy and am innately good at, working for a cause that I believe in—that's what I would like to have as employment. At one time, that would have been teaching, and in principle I would still enjoy that. However, after doing some volunteer work at a school and working as a tutor, I found that I don't get along well with little kids or teenagers. Not enough patience. To teach college adults, I would have to go back to school myself and earn a higher degree than the one I have. I'm already in debt with school loans that I will never live long enough to pay off, so that door is closed.

I don't know what to do. I see my self simply living a miserable life for the next 15 or 20 years until my organs, like my teeth, give up.