[1132] Hang Out To Dry

I'm, technically, decently accomplished today. I, after maybe a year or so, have finally started to disassemble my garden shed that blew over in a storm. It's a haven for mice, spiders, and all of the many creatures that inhabit southern Indiana wilderness. It antagonized my sinuses. It was, more or less, a fairly straight-forward breakdown given my history of taking down sheds and ownership of appropriate tools I've acquired. The reason it feels worth bringing up is in the nature of what I feel accomplished about.

As I said, I've torn down a few things much larger and more complicated than this one room 15' x 8'. There's nothing "new" in this for me to learn or feel that hasn't taken days, if not weeks, in the past, and the ongoing frustration of not initially having the things I needed to do it effectively. A good portion of the wood and panels were damaged upon crashing, so even as a salvage operation it's a touch wanting. It had a bunch of stuff inside, some I've moved elsewhere, but some that still needs carting or housing away from the elements. I don't suspect I'll have the desire or energy tomorrow morning to do it before I head to another concert.

This shed tear down is in the middle of what I'll call a "productivity wave." The weather has been brilliant, and I am one to often complain about how not-brilliant or feasible it is to work outside when I'd really like to. So far, I've managed to keep a chain of good happenings going at something of an even-keeled yet respectable pace.

 
My septic drainage system was not draining. I spent 2 weeks, very slowly and painfully, digging the muddiest of mud and sump pumping until I exposed the ends enough to figure out how to flow again. I weed whacked and dug up/attacked a dozen saplings and what I call "pricker bushes" for 4 hours. I pruned the invasive weeds threatening my driveway, scooped and dumped some rock, burnt some trash, bagged some aluminum, and rearranged some tools and shelves that had also blown over in that storm so long ago.

I've felt my cardio improving with each venture outside. I'm thinking through the projects so I'm not making a dozen ADHD trips in and outside for the scissors to cut the whacking line or reciprocating saw for choice screws that can't be pried. I'm thinking ahead to what will make an earnest approach to future projects a little easier. I've been chugging along the infinite chore list and not letting myself succumb to what feels like a sense of hopelessness that it's not that "engaging" or "the real work" that I'd otherwise like to be doing either through counseling or really any position of genuine service to someone or something I care about.

I mean this in an outsized way, I don't feel like I have much left to prove to myself. I'm convinced. I overwhelmingly tend to say what I mean, attempt to do what I say, and know what I'm capable of. I begrudge some circumstance, then throw on my pants and get back to work. I practice, even when I don't want to, some level of the things that keep me feeling generally okay or contented-enough. What kind of asshole would I be if I didn't utilize a breezy and cloudy day to approach an outdoor project like that? Especially because it didn't cost anything extra, like the fence or wood shop will.

I feel a sense of accomplishment in besting that sense of, "But I don't feel like it." My feelings don't really matter and rarely make that much sense. I understand this so well and so consistently that I routinely respond to them with a course of action that shows them how dumb and wrong they are. I don't think anyone who's been paying attention to my forays on the land for the last few years had any doubts that I could tear down another shed. I do think many would subconsciously root for that "I don't feel like it" sense to take me as it's taken them.

It's a meme, like everything now, to say you want to go off-grid or persuade all your friends to start a farm. It's this anxiety-inducing fantasy about a way to escape the trappings of modern existence. Allie professed to want to create this grand garden I'm pretty sure she's just abandoned entirely. I've heard from a dozen minor associates about their wish to grow things or raise animals or just have the space and time to reconnect with themselves and be more crafty or exploratory in their job pursuits. But, it's only the thought that they feel like engaging in. It doesn't feel right to take sentiments or dreams like that too seriously.

This fundamental disconnect I think speaks to the overwhelming amount of human misery. The, "I'm too tired," "I'm too busy," "I'm too scared," "I'm too dumb," "I'm too poor," "I'm too otherwise engaged in the pageantry of my current existence." We want familiar, predictable, "stable," and yes even stable in the nature of the chaos. We want to chirp our wishful stories like a birdsong, hear yours in return, and then retreat back to our nests for another fierce mastabatory session. Who were you singing to and why even bother?

I pointed out a couple projects that I estimated would take about a day individually, a couple weeks tops if I had the money to do them tomorrow. Some of the projects I pointed out I've managed to incorporate on this productivity train and have proven to fall along my estimations. This means I'm eating up the available occupations of time before I'm back to doing inside stuff. This means I'll be ticking boxes and crossing off lists, so "accomplished" in my little corner, realizing all of the little pieces it takes to maintain the freer nature of my circumstances.

I'm at a stage that's trying to maintain and protect my freedom. From here, it looks very much like freedom isn't what anyone really wants. Absolute freedom is of course madness. Confinement can be worse than death. "Naturally," we find ourselves boxed into the constraints of cultural norms, religious, let's call them suggestions, and our own pathological allegiance and conditioning bred from our familial circumstances. You would do the reasonable or most-desired thing, but your unreasonable parent will protest and then it will "be a whole thing…" on down the explanatory line to what practically manifests as the boundary to your cage.

People cross oceans to be "free." They brave rapey drug cartels and severe weather. People die in the name of being free from tyranny or undue oppression. When it's in-your-face bad, the value and importance of freedom will make you do anything. When it's been massaged into your working memory and language, well, you feel free already, right? That's why you come to so many shows with me.

You can't fix what you're not free to. You can't address something your vision and language aren't tuned to elucidate. We all suffer the consequences of our ignorant and hateful "leadership," and worst instincts of capitalism, and deliberate campaigns of "disinformation." When you're plugged in, it all feels very normal. It is what is. When you work to pull out? You have your most precious time to genuinely engage in a way that modern life makes impossible. I literally feel like a different and fairly helpless person when I'm locked into the middle of my "work" day. "Work" that requires me to sit around and wait, or suffer through a nonsense meeting, or commute for no reason, or fill out paperwork that could have been done 90% faster if anyone who gave a damn updated the system.

That is miserable. That is a series of systems that negligently hate you through neglect. They don't care about your time. They don't care if you die in a car wreck on the commute home. They don't care if you ever get to your favorite vacation spot and enjoy it without a single thought about how your job is nagging you to come back. They don't care if 1% of your farming dream is actually real and what could manifest once you get your hands dirty. They care about the empty song they can sing into the world to signal their virtue and grasp of business as usual. You stay tamed, they stay in control. They feel as little about you as you feel for yourself.

I feel a lot about myself. I feel like a gassed up engine roaring constantly, yearning for a well-built appropriate track to race down. There's fresh tires, a whole crew working together, reasonable rules for the safe execution of shooting a well-oiled machine into the future. I'm a mass of constant kindling, waiting for the big 3 to ever all line up at once. Time, money, and tools, often in the form of another set of hands. I've had a shit ton of time begging me to irresponsibly spend so I can knock out land projects. I can make a shit ton of money provided I give some company 90% of my week and wish to spend 35% of it keeping my cars working and gassed. Often enough it's practically the rule, physical help comes with its own strings.

I said that I don't have much, if anything, to really prove to myself. I have a great many things I'd like to see and experience as a result of what I've already proven or know. I suppose I wonder, do you not see in yourself the same things I see in me? I know I got super caught up on that disparity in what I took for granted about my "friend" group and old roommates. This sucker naively genuinely believed. But I feel like part of me has always believed, or at least been doing the things that make it so it's not a belief system. I'm writing this on the back of another begrudgingly defiant series of actions in spite of my inane feelings. I don't have to believe in myself, I took pictures.

In school, I read the books. With girls, I struck the fuck out ten times for every hook up. I've taken the jobs I considered beyond my skill set and outside my frame of interest or reference. I'm living within the experiment of amassing and building with salvaged materials. I've kept the faith of an entrepreneurial spirit in investing and experimenting with ways to sustain the effort, for years, and in the midst of getting stolen from and constantly lied to. I'm seeing more shows in a month than most people I'll meet will in the next 10 years. I'm officially sworn in as a volunteer for the most uniquely stressful job they don't want to call a job. I'm spending more time with friends and my dad as I wait for work or life obligations to slot into this exceptionally hard-fought and winning picture I would like to make last for as long as I possibly can.

Alone, I know who I am, what I want, just about how I should go about it without sacrificing everything I care about, and what it could be if, oh, I don't know, the people I tend to get closest to don't scream at me, abandon me, or take advantage. I give a lot of credit to anyone who tries and fails. I can't understand not trying at all, giving up when it isn't like absolutely necessary, or failing to recognize and ride when someone has the same potential I feel I crave at this point. I feel like I've been wasted on so many people, but I also don't know how I could have done better or saved myself the grief. Thankfully, I know where I was coming from, even if they maybe never will.