I was awakened early this morning, maybe sometime before 5:00. They decided to push me on a project which I have wanted to do all this time - get rid of stuff. Now I look and there are books written about this. All of a sudden, getting rid of clutter is the latest fad. It was when I went to the place that used to be Kinko's Copies - it's no longer Kinko's, but instead, it's called 'Fed Ex Something-Or-Other.' Kinko's? Does it still exist? I can argue that peak oil, with a lowercase p and o, is a myth, but I still agree that the economy is bad - however, not permanently, and not as a result of some irreversible natural force. Anyway, at Kinko's, I saw the book about getting rid of clutter. And I saw it on someone's blog, on an assignment on the forum - if only I had time to spend writing and interacting on the forum - there are so many interesting people and ideas - an assignment to 'type this blog,' and so I looked at it and I tried to type it. I'm not ready to guess what it is, though. I don't like to make hasty guesses, even though 'they' often force me to.
I had gone to Kinko's or whatever to make copies of my little bookkeeping ad. Slowly, one tiny step at a time, I try to do this hopeless project. It wouldn't be hopeless, except that it goes so slowly, and I don't have control over my choices, so if 'they' decide to force me to suddenly abandon this project, then I will abandon it and will be physically unable to try to continue it, the project of getting a job as a bookkeeper. And I sincerely want to try that, too - I see it as something which is potentially highly profitable which requires hardly any initial investment to get started.
Everything is falling apart at once. In a few weeks, my car's inspection will be expired, and I don't have a second job and can't get the money to finish fixing the car. I don't want to talk about that right now.
If I can't drive, then I won't be able to get into the storage unit and move stuff out of it during the summer when it's warm and I can stand to be outside. I can't bear to work in the storage unit in the winter. The summer is so short here. The summer lasts about, like, ONE MONTH. Everything else is winter. I am completely incapacitated for 11 months out of the year. Okay, slight exaggeration.
'They' wanted me to mention my co-worker with the introverted ethics. When I had mentioned that, I heard the phrase 'you've got to get some of it somewhere,' which was written on the socionics pages. Introverted ethics is in my super-id block. (If you weren't reading about socionics, then none of this would make any sense to you. I'm now using socionics jargon.) My schedule changed because of my trying to work along with the Manpower job, which... also fell apart. Now I'm not on the weekend, and I see this guy less than I did when we worked together on the weekend, because of his schedule. I always assume that nobody gives a shit about me, but it's possible that he misses working with me. It's also possible that everyone is now aware that I am blogging about everything and everyone in the universe and so they know not to say anything loudly enough for me to hear. Either one. I am trying to interpret the impression of quietly suppressed feeling that I get when I see him.
When I got up this morning, I went outside to check how full the dumpster was. I had something specific which I was ready to put in it - I don't like to talk about this. But I had something I was ready to put in the dumpster. But the wind was blowing, because, as usual, even though it's the middle of April, to me it's still winter. It was cold and unbearable and I cannot go out there and do this now. I am avoiding wearing my coat - that coat is the one that hugged Chris. It now has benzodiazepine on it, and after that exposure last time, I was deathly ill in the middle of the night and wondered if I would go to the hospital, merely for a few molecules of residue.
I have been writing tagless blogs for a while now. I can see my blog stats slowly, slowly, slowly going down to fewer and fewer page views per day. Apparently, I got a lot of page views from people looking at the tags on Wordpress - that was the whole point of using them. This is sort of an interesting experiment to get a feel for how many views I got from that source.
How many people have time to sit around looking through random blogs on the net? Wouldn't it be nice to live that way? To just be able to read things? I haven't read books in a while. There are reasons. When drug residues force you to throw away every belonging in the garbage, you don't want to buy books anymore. Last time I borrowed a book from the library, I ruined it - it got ephedra on it and I could not give it back to the library, because even though they don't believe in the existence of such things, I know that my observations are correct. I will not give away something which is dangerous to other people. So I paid a fee for the 'lost' library book.
I was reading something about extraverted intuition. Rick said that he doesn't like the Reinin dichotomies. I appreciated seeing his opinion on that, but strangely, when I went and looked at the Reinin dichotomies myself, they helped me understand a lot more about the functions. It is probably something that I will use temporarily as a background structure in my concepts. That was one disagreement that I had with Rick, that the Reinin dichotomies were not completely useless to me personally at this time, although they might be to him.
Extraverted intuition supposedly likes to talk about 'phases of time.' The 'welcome to the post-peak oil world' post is about how we are entering a new time phase. He would like to see and understand which time phases we are in. What is the time phase we are in now, anyway? If it isn't post-peak-oil, then what is it? There is, indeed, SOMETHING going on in the world, everywhere, somewhere.
We all want to know things about the economy. How hard will it be to survive? Is the economy going to collapse as badly as it has several times in recent history, in various countries? Will thousands of people be jobless? Will we see hyperinflation of the prices of food and other items so that people's lives are in danger because of severe poverty and malnutrition? Will it be like the Great Depression?
What do we do to protect ourselves against those things before they happen?
There is one thing which I myself have an opinion about. The banking system. I haven't been reading enough online lately to know what is going on in the financial world. The government's control of the banking system is what's causing the economic problems we have right now. And bank failures are real. And there are big things going on between various countries involving unimaginably huge amounts of money. There is a conflict with China about something, but it's been so long since I read about it, I don't recall what it is. They've been saving huge amounts of money in dollars, and somebody wants to control something, and somebody doesn't like it that China has that much money, and blah blah blah. Again, no details - it's been months and months since I read any financial news.
I've wondered about the banking system. If you had huge amounts of money, what would be the safest thing to do with it? It really is not safe to keep huge amounts of money in the banks, but what do you do with it instead? Banks really are at risk of failing. And 'investments' are... I don't know the word for this, but I snort with scorn at the thought of 'investments.' Our retirement money, those things that people do automatically because everyone else is doing them - when you get a job, you set up an IRA. There are these ways of saving money where you are expecting to 'earn interest.' The very concept of 'earning interest' is now so badly distorted and meaningless that I think you shouldn't ever even TRY to 'earn interest.' And yet, some people are doing it. There are people out there who really are doing all of the things that I say are extremely risky. Some of them are succeeding, and others are having disastrous failures and huge losses. Some banks will fail, some won't. Some investments will collapse and others will keep dragging on and on. And I haven't been reading about this subject and have no idea if anything new has happened.
I don't have any money to worry about, but my father does, as he's retired and is living off his savings and his investments. He needs his investments to last for the rest of his life, a few more decades. Dad's money could all be destroyed in an instant. I worry about that sometimes. If his money were destroyed, would my dad do anything stupid? You hear these stories about people who commit suicide after the bank failures wipe out their life savings. It has happened several times in recent history, when the financial systems collapse and destroy the money that people worked for and saved for decades, when their entire life savings vanishes into nothing because of the government-controlled banking system, and horrible things happen and people die.
So yes, I do still think about the economic system. Or rather, I don't, but I wish I had the luxury of thinking about such things, which I haven't had lately. I haven't had time to think about anything except a minimal daily survival. I haven't been taking drugs, and I've had horrible fatigue, and can barely manage to just get myself to work each day. And I know part of what's causing the fatigue, but there is so much to do on all of my projects that I can't troubleshoot the fatigue.
There is already something that Rick is doing which will protect him in case of economic collapse. It is the Ukrainian method of banking: have lots of friends, and depend on them in a crisis. Borrow money, and lend money, and sometimes take it or give it without getting it back. Large groups of people depending on each other's help will soften the effects of any economic problems. In fact I envy him for being able to make so many friends. This is a socionic phenomenon - I myself cannot stand the very thought of trying to make large numbers of friends. Depending on a friends network - that's what we do in a collapse. Find people who love you so much that they will give you physical, material things when you need them, like a place to sleep, food to eat, a ride someplace, or money.
Underground economies appear when the government-controlled, government-approved banking systems collapse totally. And I don't see a total collapse, although I could be wrong, and if I were reading about this subject, I'd probably be more pessimistic, because most of the writers out there are pessimistic - of course, as they are trying to plan ahead and protect against dangers. But there are economic ups and downs. By definition, there is no such thing as 'total collapse' of the economy, because as long as there is a single living, breathing human on earth, then somebody somewhere will be growing food regardless of whether anyone can get the government-approved paper money to pay for it. They will pay for it using any means necessary. Someone trades a gallon of milk for a couple dozen eggs, or whatever.
Random comment: I love dozenal counting. Dozenal counting is cool. Dozenal number systems are something you can read about on the net. There are reasons why we use the number 12. It was the government that forced us to stop using our 'natural' systems of measurement such as dozenal systems, and forced us to use 'unnatural' systems such as the metric system. The number 12 is much more useful than the number 10. The government portrayed our use of the number 12 as being archaic and stupid and old-fashioned and inefficient. Only stupid people count things in groups of 12. Meanwhile, it turns out that there is a mathematical reason for all of that, and as soon as you learn about it, the number 12 suddenly seems much smarter than the metric system and its groups of 10 and 100.
The decimal system will never look the same way again after you read about dozenal counting systems and what they're good for. I remember being told in elementary school that the metric system was the smartest coolest thing ever created, and we were all brainwashed to believe that it would be wonderful if we used the metric system for everything, but unfortunately, people are persistently stupid and ignorant, so they insist on continuing to use 'pounds' for our weight in the United States, because of their ignorance. *SUPERIOR PEOPLE* use the nice, clean metric system. I don't know the details of the 'pound' system and the rationale for why it is used, but I've decided that the old-fashioned, archaic ways of doing stuff are often much smarter, much more ingenious, and much cooler than the things the government forces us to use instead, if only you know the rationale behind them. So learn to appreciate the number twelve. I forget the google search term. 'Dozenal counting systems?'
About Rick himself: he is already doing the right thing in terms of preparing for economic difficulties. He has a large network of friends. There are other things people need to do, and everyone wants to know what to do with their large amounts of money that are being kept in the bank and in various investments. Everyone wants to know if it will all be wiped out in an instant.
How do I personally FEEL about this? Can I express an opinion? Okay. I myself feel disgust at the thought of the banking system, and in my fantasy - I don't know if I'd do this in the real world - in my fantasy, I would get all the money out of the banks, out of everything, and just keep it in a box somewhere. In a treasure chest, with a treasure map, and traps to prevent it from being stolen, like something in Indiana Jones. That's my fantasy.
I don't know what to tell someone who doesn't like gold. I actually respect his choice, as Rick wrote on one of his websites that he doesn't like gold and doesn't like mining and doesn't like it that it destroys the mountains. If you don't use gold and silver for long-term savings, then what would you use instead? ... But, a logical inconsistency... bleep... the alarms are going off. It would apply to all objects and all products that result from anything having to do with mining. All forms of mining would be bad. Coal mining, iron mining, all of the minerals and chemicals that are mined from the ground and refined and processed and made into a million, million different manmade products. Every mineral mined from the ground would be rejected because of the damage done when it's dug up from the ground. So my logical-inconsistency alarms went off, but I don't want to tell him to just stop caring about it, because it is a sincere desire to avoid using products that destroy something he loves. I understand that he has a distaste, a dislike, of gold and where it comes from.
This is similar to something that I experience, actually. I'm not thinking so much about how gold is mined and whether it destroys the environment. Instead, with me, I don't like the fact that I have strange reactions every time I touch heavy metals like gold or silver. (I think one of my silver coins might be a counterfeit that contains lead - it's this one particular coin and I'm suspicious about it. It might be lead I'm reacting to.) I believe that it's not good to touch and handle large amounts of metal. It is physically bad for your health. It doesn't matter what kind of metal it is - or, yes, it matters - some metals are worse than other ones. But all metals are sort of, slightly, not good for you, but if you don't notice any symptoms while touching them, then it's probably okay. I myself notice symptoms while handling silver coins. So on the one hand, I believe in using gold and silver as the best way of saving money in the long run, but on the other hand, I believe it's physically not good for you to actually be TOUCHING the pieces of metal all the time, either. And I also don't like all the toxic things used in processing gold and silver. I know mercury is used at some point in the process, so, what if the coins contain tiny amounts of mercury residue? And I know that people who work in those industries are poisoned by those chemicals. So, in a way, I have something similar, where I have my own personal objection to using gold, silver, and any other metals. I never wear metal jewelry anymore either. I get rashes from it, and I feel it constantly against my skin, tickling and burning, no matter what metal it is. All metals irritate my skin.
This is another socionics phenomenon. Some people just aren't all that bothered about the idea that some substance will make you sick. They are more interested in the fact that you can get rich if you are mining it and processing it and selling it. It looks like the difference between introverted sensing and extraverted sensing, but I'm not sure.
Do my gypsy wanderers build their caravans entirely of wood, and use horses to pull their carts? Are their axe blades made of obsidian? What exactly do we do?
I was feeling my dreadlocks just now while thinking - I pick up a strand of hair and run my hands and fingers over it. It feels rough and strange. For a moment I can't believe I've really got dreadlocks. There was a time in the past when I had loose, combed hair. 'They' called my attention to this, suddenly focusing my awareness in a way that pointed out that something unusual or important is going on here. I think they wanted me to mention that manmade chemicals are used in shampoo. I myself am not using any soap or shampoo. I wash my whole body entirely with water.
I asked some people why they don't grow beards, and I got a lot of answers. It was on the dreadlocks forum. I want to copy their answers and keep a record of them. One reason is because beards itch. Troubleshooting is required. Why do beards itch? How do you stop them from itching? I suspect that it might happen if people are still trying to wash their faces with bar soap.
I stopped having a lot of skin problems when I stopped using bar soap on my skin, years ago. It was when I moved in with Eric and saw that, for some reason, he just used shampoo to wash his whole body. I liked that idea and I started doing it. The shampoo made me feel less greasy than bar soap. I was always 'taught' that you are 'supposed' to wash your whole body with bar soap, and your hair with shampoo. Now there are 'no shampoo' movements on the internet telling people that they might actually use bar soap to wash their hair, to avoid using shampoo. Or you can stop using everything, as I have. But it's likely that you will grow dreadlocks if you stop using shampoo. There might be some groups of people with some types of hair textures which don't form dreadlocks even if they don't use shampoo, but I haven't got enough information about this.
There are things I take for granted that I don't do anymore, and I've forgotten that I ever did them. I've forgotten that I used to use soap. Rick writes about life in Ukraine, and I'm like, 'I'm already there.' I already don't sit down on toilet seats. I started that whenever I figured out about the invisible parasitic itch mites. You get them from toilet seats, in addition to several other places. They also come from cats and dogs, and they are extremely bad at the duckpond, where hundreds of ducks walk over the ground next to the pond, shedding their various mites and parasites, which crawl up your legs. It took me a few years to understand what was happening to me, and back then, it was a *huge* big deal and I was *very* upset about it, but now, I don't care anymore. The mites don't bother me much. I don't sit on toilet seats now. I don't have cats or dogs in the house. The only time I get mites now is when I first buy new clothes from Goodwill. Their clothes are full of mites.
I also got mites badly the one time I went to the bar with my co-workers a couple years ago and sat on a bar stool - I was itching unbearably and didn't want to scratch my butt in a public place, and it's always your butt that itches, the worst possible place to scratch in front of everyone, because it's always from sitting on a seat and getting the mites from the people that were there before you. You can actually feel the mites crawling and digging and biting. And the fabric of your pants is so thick that you aren't able to scratch the mites by rubbing the fabric against your skin.
This only started in the past decade. I don't know why I never noticed it before. There are a lot of things that I learned to notice, and maybe, they were happening before, but I didn't know how to interpret them, and nothing had ever been severe enough to really call my attention to it. I had a *SEVERE* outbreak of the mites a few years ago, and my entire ankles were covered with hundreds of spots and scratches, constantly, and I had mange, very severely, and other people in town had it too - I saw them when they were out walking. Lots of people had the red dots all over their legs. Some people get all scratched and scarred from them, and others have no marks at all. I myself am covered in scars, all over my arms and legs and back. And this isn't caused by 'being unclean,' because it all started back during the time when I was still doing mainstream grooming, and I still used shampoo and all that. It was most strongly connected to having the stray cats at Eric's house, back when I was still visiting him. Snipe had mange very, very badly, and he had bleeding scratches all over his face. Every time I petted him, I would feel the mites crawling up my arms and digging.
So... dreadlocks. As I was petting my dreadlocks a few minutes ago they called my attention to them. And how strange it is that I have these now. I am committed to them, but also, if I ever decided I didn't want locks anymore, I would *never* cut my hair to get them out. I can't imagine cutting them off. It took so many years to grow my hair this long! I would simply comb them out, patiently, over weeks and weeks and weeks if necessary, a little at a time. A few weeks? That's nothing! It took a *decade* to grow my hair this long! What's a few tiny, trivial little weeks of combing, compared to the decade of growing? To get my hair to grow back would take another decade! To just gently comb out the dreadlocks would take a few weeks of patience, and that's nothing. I would wash them with shampoo and conditioner, lots and lots of conditioner, and I would gently pick through them one by one. Dreadlocks are not permanent and they are not damaged. If I combed them out, my hair would be perfectly healthy underneath - probably healthier than it's ever been in my life, since I've now gone... what, two years? without using any shampoo at all. There is no chemical damage at all on the new hair that has grown in at the roots. It's 'virgin hair' untouched by shampoo.
I agree with Soaring Eagle and the dreadlockssite forum - I haven't been there in a few weeks. But I agree, there really does exist a myth that dreadlocks are caused by damaged hair, that you can only get them by deliberately doing things to your hair and damaging it irreversibly. Natural locks are not like that. They happen peacefully and safely on their own with no damage. I remember I myself used to see other people's locks and assume that they had done something horrible to make their hair that way, and often, it's true, they did. But that's because I wasn't aware of how natural neglect dreadlocks work. They happen all by themselves if you stop using shampoo and conditioner. Some locks really are created by using damaging, artificial methods like backcombing, but some locks have no damage at all and are growing as a result of doing nothing.
Now I'm writing just to feel myself write. I'm typing just for the pleasure of typing on a keyboard. That's usually the reason why I write. It's something my body is able to do when I am in pain and in fatigue, when I don't want to move around.
I know he'll be going into the mountains. Not long now. There is this pain and envy and longing that I feel.
I used to take walks in the woods in West Virginia. It's not safe to do that here. Here, the woods are full of rhododendrons, and rhododendrons are no joke. They are deadly to me personally. Maybe some people can tolerate them. But if I even walk past a rhododendron, my heart flutters as I breathe the deadly poisonous vapors emanating from the plants. This is *literal truth* and no exaggeration. I *literally* feel heart palpitations merely when I *walk* next to rhododendrons. THEY ARE DEADLY.
I went into Black Moshannon park a few years ago, when 'they' urged me to go there on a whim, and I took pictures of the flowers. I walked up next to one, and as a result, I brought the footprints of rhododendron poison into my car. Rhododendron residue causes chest pains and heart attack symptoms. It causes arrythmia. Your whole left arm will tingle and fall asleep as your heart isn't pumping properly.
I wonder what happens to the hunters who go in the woods and crawl and run through the mountain laurel? My uncle Eugene has heart problems, and I asked aunt Jeannie one time if she herself had ever touched the wild rhododendrons or noticed any problems with them. She said she had gone hunting with Eugene one time and had gone through a patch of rhododendrons, and she hadn't had any problems or noticed anything was wrong. So I can't explain it. Some people can't metabolize the poison.
I read an article when I googled 'heart attack' and 'rhododendron' and maybe one or two other search terms, I forget. There was a news story about a guy who had suddenly and unexpectedly died of a heart attack while in the midst of judging a rhododendron competition. He was probably touching and handling dozens of plants while examining them and judging them. The news article said, 'At least he died while doing something he loved,' to rationalize it. The news article DID NOT EVEN MENTION that exposure to transdermal and inhaled rhododendron poison had probably triggered the heart attack that killed him!!! Apparently they don't know! This kind of thing frustrates me to no end... and there's nothing I can do, so I just ignore it. People will always be clueless, forever, and as soon as you teach one person, a thousand more clueless people will be right behind them waiting in line.
Anyway, a few days ago, I was imagining the thinking process that goes into preparing for a hike. When I used to take walks, I would go into the woods on impulse, and I might walk miles and miles. But in the hills of West Virginia, you are never very far away as the crow flies. And we were surrounded by a circle of highways. No matter which direction I went, I was completely surrounded, so it was impossible to go into the woods and get lost forever. I might go several miles, I might get exhausted and hungry and thirsty, but in a little while, I would come to a road. We were encircled by the roads.
So, what if you were thinking of this: What if I went on a hike, and kept going? Instead of turning around and coming back. It would be a leap of understanding. I can DO this. It's possible. I can pack stuff in this backpack and bring food with me, and just keep walking, and don't stop. I don't turn around and come back. I don't just walk for a few hours and then go down the trail that leads home. Instead I keep going, farther and farther away, with a pack of supplies that I planned in advance.
Imagine the moment when you cross the road. You've been encircled by roads. The roads make you safe. No matter how far you go, you'll reach a road and you'll be able to get help and get back home. But when you cross that road and go to the other side, you are in a whole new area. If you have a map, then you know what it's like over there. I wasn't using maps when I was a kid walking around. So if I ever crossed a road, I had no idea what I was going into. I might get to an area that wasn't encircled by roads. I might get to a place where I could go into the woods for a very long way and not be able to get back. That never happened, but I imagined it could have.
I would walk through people's backyards and cross their streets. I would wander through the little communities between the houses. Dogs would bark at me. I'd get scared and embarrassed and I'd hope that nobody came outside to yell at me for crossing their lawn. I'd see what the back of the houses looked like. Maybe you only see the front side when you drive down the street, but when you go walking, you see the backs, and all the messy stuff, and people's belongings and their laundry lines and bikes and toys and gardens. It's all beautiful and fascinating.
I've wandered before. I remember how it feels. It takes this leap of impulse to realize that you're physically capable of stepping off this path and onto the grass where you're not allowed to walk. You're not supposed to go there, and you go there anyway. They might call it intuition, but for me it was impulse. I would just do it for no reason. Does it look dark and mysterious under those trees? Is there a pathway that seems to lead to something mysterious and wonderful? Then I'll crawl through these thorn bushes, get tangled in them, get on my hands and knees and get covered in mud, and I'll get through into those woods.
I imagined that thinking process. How strange it would feel to go outside and not come back! To go in one direction and just keep going. It's like the dreams I've had at night - and yes, I am a victim of mind control - all of my dreams are fake. But I sometimes have dreams where I experience long journeys, exploring, and it's like playing a video game. I can't wait to get to the next section of the video game. I've been seeing it all this time, and wondering how to get to it. I see it gradually approaching over the hours and hours of walking. Then finally I'm there. You go to where it's unthinkable to go. And then you keep going. It's all planned in advance. If you go a slightly different way, then you end up in a totally different set of interconnected valleys. What's in this valley? I've never been here before. This is new. Do we look at a map? I *love* topological maps. I was always excited to look at them when I was a teenager. My mom had some because of stuff having to do with the ... what's it called? The housing thing. The group that makes the decisions about the community they live in. I forget what it's called. Anyway she was on the board of directors or whatever. So she had maps and things that they needed for making decisions about building roads and all that.
There was something about looking at a map that was so exciting and exhilarating, when I was younger. I was always overwhelmed with this feeling that I wanted to *do* something with the map. I wanted to try walking on it. I don't mean stepping on the piece of paper. I wanted to go out and be in the map. I wanted to go out and look at the map and see if I could get to this particular mountain on the map. It didn't matter which one! I could pick a random one! Just having a destination made it exciting. I would try to get over there to that place. And the mountains of West Virginia are small and complex, so you can see a thousand little peaks and valleys there.
Well... if it gets warmer outside today, then I might work on taking one or two items to the dumpster.
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