I performed the weekly ritual yesterday evening after having complained that I didn't get the chance to go swimming this week. I did end up going. There was a small, mild thunderstorm approaching as I was driving to the lake. I could see that it wasn't much of a storm, and the sky was mostly clear. I parked and walked along the path while the thunder rumbled and a little bit of rain fell. The sun was still out, and a rainbow formed over the lake. I went to my secluded cove. It's not really secluded, but it's mostly blocked from view in several directions, and I just have to wait until everyone is gone. I've gotten more confident. I know where to go, I know the territory, I know how to hide behind the bushes and trees when I need to.
The storm passed quickly and I never saw any lightning. I found a tree to hide inside of. Its branches hung out over the water and drooped down into it. I waited until the right moment, took off my clothes, and crawled into the water under the tree branches. The water was colder than usual, but I got used to it. It was also rough with wind waves from the storm.
I started swimming, a doggy paddle as always, then the sideways arms stroke, whatever that's called, the swan stroke or something, the one where I wave my arms back and forth in s-curves. It was very hard to swim against the rough waves coming towards me, but when I turned around and swam towards the shore, it was easy, as I was pushed from behind.
I stayed a little while, but not long. I would've wanted to stay longer if the water had been warm, if it had been sunnier, if I had felt more secluded and secure. But at least I got a chance to do it. This was the third time, I think.
I felt much better afterwards.
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You need to consider a more southern living environment.
a- PA is too cold to be naked 6+ months/yr.
b- The Amish "morality" frowns on revalationsof skin.
c- The "I waz jus fishin..." rape defense is accepted here.
d- There are no hot springs in this area...
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/02/the-phoenix-and-the-dragon/
The Phoenix And The Dragon
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Jon Evans Jul 2, 2011
I’m in India. It’s a glorious mess. The streets of Delhi remain a seething, endless vortex of chaos, as they were when I last visited eleven years ago, but nowadays, gleaming new highways, shopping malls, and five-star hotels rise above them. The sleek and efficient new metro system carries millions of people a day, but leaks in the monsoon rains. The suburb of Gurgaon looks completely First World, equal parts office towers, shopping centres, luxury gated residental enclaves, and golf courses, but as the New York Times recently reported, it does not have “a functioning citywide sewer or drainage system; reliable electricity or water; and public sidewalks, adequate parking, decent roads or any citywide system of public transportation.” Meanwhile, the government is reeling with corruption scandals, including last year’s Commonwealth Games debacle and a whopping $40 billion worth of mis-auctioned 2G spectrum.
The central question of our time is whether this will be China’s century or India’s. (Assuming that the notion of nation-states survives, which seems likely, there aren’t really any other contenders; China and India contain nearly half of humanity, and both are well on their way to economic superpower.) I admit that right now it might not seem much of a contest. China is more populous, already a decade ahead of India in terms of economic development, growing faster, and—measured by patents—far more innovative. In China, achievements are accomplished at the behest of the government; in India, things somehow manage to get done despite the government.
But I think that’s an advantage. I don’t believe patent applications measure real innovation. I think India is more innovative, and that it will ultimately win the economic race, not just despite the Indian authorities’ habit of incompetent self-destruction, but because of it. There’s an essay by Eric Raymond, called The Cathedral and the Bazaar, which is famous in the software world. It compares and contrasts two models of software development; the top-down “cathedral” model of eg GCC, and the chaotic—sometimes verging on anarchic—bottom-down “bazaar” model of eg Linux. I think there are parallels between software development and economic development, and that China is a cathedral (or maybe even a closed-source Microsoft) whereas India is a bazaar. And in the software world, eventually, the bazaar won.
Consider corruption. It’s the scourge of both nations. I’ve already cited a few of India’s greatest hits. China too is plagued by almost weekly corruption scandals; recently, after it emerged that its railway minister was on the take, it slowed its brand-new high-speed train network in the name of safety; and the accounting of internationally listed Chinese firms has recently been seriously questioned. The response in both nations has been a variation of “yes, government corruption is a real problem, but don’t worry, we in the government are going to root it out!” Unsurprisingly many are less than convinced.
But India has an anti-corruption weapon that China doesn’t—indeed, one that would probably be banned if it were to gain traction in China. I give you ipaidabribe.com, an open, crowdsourced corruption-reporting service. I’ve been calling for just such a thing for some years now. Corruption is the enemy of development; transparency is the enemy of corruption; and China isn’t just opaque, it’s opaque by design. Advantage India; and it’s only one such of many. The Chinese dragon has a huge head start over the Indian phoenix, but it says here that in the end the latter will win, because as the software world already knows, the cathedral is inherently inferior to the bazaar.
The phoenix will rise again and the dragon will burn them to ash... tis a cycle my dear ound and and round she goes were she stops nobody knows,,,
I am actually considering a more southern climate for real. And yeah, I admire a lot of things about the Amish, but I don't admire their modesty about the physical body.
As for possibly being raped, I've thought about that. The only time I'm naked is when I'm in the water, and as soon as I get out, I get dressed (under a bunch of hanging tree branches where it's hard to see me). So when I walk down the trail, I look like a fully dressed person who is also rather wet. If someone sees me for the first time while I'm dressed and walking, then I am at much at risk of giving them rape
ideas as any other somewhat wet fully dressed person would be. If they saw me swimming and felt that my nakedness invited their rape, that could possibly make them angry/empowered/motivated enough to do it after I got out of the water. However, nudity is also sort of boring, and in and of itself, is not really sexual. It would be more likely to make them feel moral indignation so they would go call the cops on me.
I'm taking my chances with it. I live in a relatively peaceful, low crime area. Drug users are my biggest threat, including prescription psychiatric drug users.
I should write another blog about how "nudity isn't sexual." I wrote about that before.
Here's something I saw while reading about gold and silver...
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Lewis/jul072011.html
It gives me a similar impression about what's going on with China. But it doesn't mention India. This article made it seem like China is weakening somehow. I don't know enough about it to say what I think, but it's something I want to know about sometimes because it affects our economy in the US.
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