There simply is no real good way to be “homeless,” in my opinion, and every little thing you take for granted in how your day to day operates has to be reevaluated and attempted to be made a plan for. I always have places to stay, in a sense, but couch or floor dwelling has its drawbacks and neighbors start eyeballing how long the outsider’s car has been there. As long as I have gas money I can get around in my crappy car which also has to make me money, at least for the next 2 months, in a greater “at random” fashion. Can I persuade Byron to cook large enough meals at once that I can just take shit to sit with me in the car so I can stay on all day at ClusterTruck, or will his crazy people find a way to ensure I’ll be bleeding an extra 5-10 a shift or navigating friend’s kitchens until they get annoyed with me?
One of the things I’ve generally tried to do is always have at least my shit contained in something I’ve already taken care of. That’s pretty much been blown right out of the window. I’ve got a closet at Byrons, my cheap option for getting the truck towed fell through so now it’s actually double what I was anticipating to get it out there, scattered items in the garage itself, and little faith I could get my truck unstuck if I barreled it through the field and parked next to thing so I could run a few things temporarily off the generator. At the garage where I cannot shit, shower, or sleep yet.
Two conflicting forces are bubbling up. One, the “of course it’s doable, just what’s to be done next” thing, and the sheer stupidity of what made me have to go about things in this way. And for what? Because people I know are content to get fat as fuck playing video games and spending money they don’t have on pizza and cigarettes? Because it’s much easier for you to take care of your own conception of happiness, if you dare call it that, than support something trying to be bigger?
But it’s worse than that though. Like, I don’t expect people to GoFundMe because I’m so noble and spirited and deserve anything. I expect people to see “us” as a whole and think about what happens when collective small contributions over time accumulate and spill over. The whole exercise of this land and cussing out ticks and ping-ponging in between where to sleep after the next 2 nights is part of a long term chain of sacrifice and investment. Things take time in general, let alone when we’re in the kind of cultural death spiral we see today.
Is it just more real to me? The instability of it all. People have worked for more years than anyone I know has been alive and been canned immediately. I had to pause a documentary interviewing a bunch of people who’ve had one tragedy or huge perspective shift after another move them into becoming travelling vandwellers. They couldn’t afford their lives anymore, their house burned down, the market tanked their job. Most of the lives I see around me are great as long as you want to live in an overpriced apartment with 2 to 4 of your friends and acquaintances from college for the rest of your life. I feel burdened with the little bills I have, let alone loans, and still would rather deal with the bullshit one month at a time of developing a canvas than shuffling myself into rooms clicking about all the time.
There’s hard and fast personality differences here I’m sure, but come on! I’m looking at people I’ve had intelligent conversations with and fun times. They all make considerably more money than me. What’s the trajectory!? What’s the goal? And because I know there isn’t one, why the fuck not!? One of the people in this video says you trade comfort for freedom. It’s certainly comfortable to have an easy place to do all of the normal things billed to you, but you’re extremely limited in your freedom. You can recreate them on your own terms, and then some. If all you’re going to do is spend money on the latest video game equipment and maybe acid festival, you’d think a garage in the middle of nowhere would look like a dream.
I feel like I’m looking at the modern city version of a hillbilly. “There ain’t shit to do, so we shoot, and mud, and do drugs.” I can be as bored with what’s on offer to my income bracket as the next guy, but I still conceive of myself as having considerably more to offer. And no, not to “the world” in any sense beyond the individuals in it I respect and call friends. I need more equality. If you’re not doing something, or already supporting, at least something as cool or big as me, I’m just sort of put off. There is absolutely no reason the story of how I get or got to wherever I do has to include what I’m sure are going to be a few ridiculously annoying and pointless months. But that’s precisely it. No one is reasoning where they fit in the whole and don’t share my conception of togetherness.
I think there’s another distinction here to be made as well. Some people say shit like, “I was born to be a baseball player!” Whatever the profession or hobby, this celebratory illusion is often used as an excuse to bypass any larger social responsibility. You were provided an easy path that, maybe you actually kind of suck at or are very average, statistically speaking, and it has nothing to do with a prenatal decree. I wasn’t born to do anything. I happen to have a brain that operates in a way that takes in more information than most in my experience care to bother with, and want to see it ordered in a way that makes sense. That’s about it. I could turn that on any field...many fields...and when I say, “I was born to be a farmer!” You’ll know I’m totally full of shit if you’d only kept count of how many times I’ve said I hate outside.
So if I’m not born to do anything, why pursue things the way I do? Well, that “ordered sense” brain keeps screaming it at me. I can be prepared without going over a cliff with “preppers.” I can learn to grow my own food, and know while I might be able to speak to industrial farming practices, am in considerably worse shape to do something about them in a real way than Monsanto. But, I’ll know who’s in control of those sorts of things at Monsanto, and then maybe go from there. My obligation is of course to me and mine, but I can’t claim that on a laptop any of us built. I don’t even have the obligation to kids. Do I want to be my dad or step-mom taking care of them 24 hours a day for 6 years when they have a stroke? Would my job allow me to leave for that long? Will I have saved up enough money or have anywhere to take them?
What bugs me most is that everything in between what I’m trying to accomplish, that these people seem to enjoy, IS STILL TOTALLY DOABLE. I don’t know if I watch as much TV as they play videogames, but if that’s your thing, GREAT, but DO ANYTHING ELSE IMPORTANT TOO! Maybe this is something I’ve gotten really wrong for a long time, but is it my job to lobby friends for what I perceive to be their excess funds and time? That not only feels crass, but small-minded, as I know people have all sorts of shit they might be paying for in the background, even if those things never got in the way of their new VR headset, or increased rent payment, or cigarettes and delivered pizza. Our standards of living aren’t set terribly high I think is the point here. Basic sanity requires some shitty food and distractions? Okay, here, NOW HELP ME DO SOMETHING REAL!
2 days left. I have to haul the majority of the kitchen to the dumpster. Take a handful of things left in the rest of the house to my car. I’m debating if I want my computer so far away from me with nowhere really practical to set it up anyway, but, I built that shit and it’s rather nice to be subjected to garage life. I could really use a non-leasing having pantry Hatsam scenario right now. Pay nominally to have a corner so I can get to work easy enough without blowing gas. Maybe I’ll just get curtains for my car, take cat naps, and start it for the air conditioning from time to time. You know, because I’m speculative or crazy or eccentric or something. Not making the relatively small sacrifices in advance to be more comprehensively practical going forward.
Part of me doesn’t like anything about this blog. I’m not feeling bitchy and feel like that’s all I’ve got. There’s a dozen trains of thought about how to proceed, and primarily they all center around ME, doing MY thing that has little to do with anything particularly comfortable or ingratiating. It sucks to recognize yourself. It sucks to have big goals. It’s tick bites and judging. It’s taking in all of the horribleness to come right now, so that the moment, if never “perfect,” is at least as complete and ordered as you can make it for now. Surely I’ve made “progress” right? I’ve accumulated wealth, space, more practical opportunities to address an already too long goal list. I can make more connections and offer more opportunities. I can answer phone calls and emails. I can play your video games and watch all your favorite shows. Is all I’m doing merely “different?” Because I think it’s something more. And I think it's the kind of more that we’ve basically forgotten how to recognize in this country in particular. It is a small, so small, group of people who even act like they’re part of something more.
At the end of his new show, Jim Jefferies says, “I think we can all do better.” I don’t. If you’re not forced, you’re not going anywhere.
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One of my biggest problems is that I'm
as tired of hearing myself speak as you. I could write thousands of
blogs needling in on a topic, and none of them will pass for the joke
I tell at bowling, or thing I create, or offer or favor I do or
commit to. If the internet has done anything terrible, it's that
we're reduced to talk. Crowd-funded initiatives that seem to build
things or save people don't feel real in equal measure. You don't
really know where your donations are going. You can't be thanked with
a hug.
Another inspiring thought drawn from Jordan Peterson is when he relates the idea of the not existing without a body. What do laws amount to with institutions to enforce them? The inert matter we're made of is just that. To actually exist and be of any worthwhile consequence is to manifest as more than an idea or noise. I've gone so long not even peaking at the peaks of what I want to manifest, I'm reduced to endless commentary about what I'm sat around.
Now this in between quasi-homeless realm is going to reduce me further. I'll be a collection of stuff scattered about, but mostly disengaged with. I'll be “driver.” I'll be the uninspired slowly typing dreg, noticing the same old rocks, whistling the same tune and beating the drum of “one day.”
Another inspiring thought drawn from Jordan Peterson is when he relates the idea of the not existing without a body. What do laws amount to with institutions to enforce them? The inert matter we're made of is just that. To actually exist and be of any worthwhile consequence is to manifest as more than an idea or noise. I've gone so long not even peaking at the peaks of what I want to manifest, I'm reduced to endless commentary about what I'm sat around.
Now this in between quasi-homeless realm is going to reduce me further. I'll be a collection of stuff scattered about, but mostly disengaged with. I'll be “driver.” I'll be the uninspired slowly typing dreg, noticing the same old rocks, whistling the same tune and beating the drum of “one day.”
