BiPolar

Try it. You'll like it. Then you won't. Then you will...

Time

I spent all of yesterday watching Woody Allen films up to Stardust Memories. Some I hadn't seen in 30+ years. I had forgotten how funny and intelligent these were. Go ahead, retire, and you too can spend such gloriously unproductive days. Fuck the dishes, cat litter and garbage. Be a laughing Taker. Nothing as much fun as subsidized laughter. Try it.

Four AM Blues

One of the worst thing about age is waking at odd hours. I often wake between three and five AM. There is no more lonely time for someone who is old and alone. It makes for a long morning and longer day. Silence rules. The world sleeps on and you don't. Feels like a form of exile and underscores isolation. It's enough to make you wish your cat could talk. That's scary.

J. H.

"Years ago I was ambitious
But now it is clear that nothing will happen."

63

One question remains: What's the point?

Life Unfolding

Entropy, entropy, entropy...

Possibiliy

Figuring out what is necessary now; one possible meaning of life. One possible reason to live.

Thought

If your only friend is a neurotic cat, you need to re-evaluate.

Statistics

Statistics are useless until interpreted and interpretations are inherently biased. So, I'm going to throw out some data that I have found regarding aging in Amerika. Then I'll try to interpret some of it and perhaps speculate on the meanings. You can draw your own conclusions. You may be surprised just how bleak “The Golden Years” are for many Americans.

Just to use as comparisons: the median income in the US is about $53,000 and the median age is about 37.

Now for the data dump.

Fifteen percent of Amerikans are over 60. The average US lifespan for males is 76, for females 81. Oddly, if you make it to 62 your projected lifespan jumps to 84. There are more people over 65 now than anytime in US history. They tend to be concentrated in four states: Florida, West Virginia, Maine and Pennsylvania have the highest percentages. Nineteen percent of males over 65 and 35% of Females live alone. Seventy one percent of Males and 45% of females over 65 are married. Seventy two percent of those over 65 make less than $35K per year. Thirty four percent make under $15K per year. Twenty four percent make at or just above the official poverty income.

Kind of bleak when you look at it.

What can we derive from this? You will live longer than you think or planned for. You are likely, especially if you are a woman, to end your life alone. Also, you are very likely to be poor or near to it. That's it: old, lonely and broke. This in the “richest” country in the world.

So much for “The Golden Years.” I'd say more like “The Lead Years.” Not like The Waltons.

These are just a few of the reasons why minimalism is valuable to older people.

I'll talk more about this more in future posts.

Mike

Yup

Perceptions

If perception truly is everything, then the old in Amerika are in trouble.

Amerika is a youth obsessed country. It is also a capitalistic consumer oriented country. All the power of capitalism goes into (via advertising, etc.) creating and maintaining this obsession.

Take women as an example. If you are female in Amerika, you must always look 25. You must be slim, long-haired, sexually alluring, preferably blond and dress youthfully. This goes a long way toward answering the question why so many women who are 40+ are so fat, unhappy, depressed and bitchy. Simply put, there is no reasonable way for most of them to meet cultural expectations. Either they let themselves go (fatties abound in the US) or the resort to grotesquenesses to measure up (extreme diet and exercise, plastic surgery, etc.) The can't win so depression abounds.

Most women have known that horrible moment when a young, attractive man looks right through them. They have become culturally invisible. Unless they belong to the tiny class of hairy, man hating, doctrinaire feminists, they are shocked and hurt.

Men suffer from all this too, but not as much. Younger women will sometimes actually see value in an older man. Rarely, but sometimes. And cultural invisibility come later for men. Corvettes and condos help. Still, the same moment will arrive and so will the hurt and shock.

This is not as simple as all men are pigs or all women are bitches. In fact, the perception that we don't exist is created by the capitalist media and advertisers. What we do is buy into it.

I will explore other non male/female perceptions about the old in future texts.

So a question: in France you see lovely older women dressed alluringly (but not like 20 year olds) who are slim, can run in high-heels over cobble stones and exude sexuality. You often see them with younger men, who are clearly entranced. Why there and not here?

Mike

Prelude

"Sailing to Byzantium" - W. B. Yeats

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
---Those dying generations---at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come. 

Old

So what is old? If I'm going to talk about aging we need to come to an understanding, an agreement on terms.

Traditionally, adulthood begins a 18, middle-age at 30 and old age at 60. By those standards, at 62, I'm old.

But is it that simple? I know middle-age octogenarians, 50 year old adolescents and old 30 somethings; so there must be more to this than the common categories provide.

I think there are many factors at work here: your past, your genes, your health, your attitude, your finances, etc. A hard life of poverty can make one old early. Pessimism and depression can as well. Chronic illness will wear you out too.

I often hear, “you're only as old as you feel.” Nonsense. Too many variables in the word feel.

I think the answer is totally personal. We all age and we all die. When is irrelevant. A Zen drill sergeant once told me, “you don't get older than dead.” I saw 19 year olds die; they were old.

Old for all of us is the same thing. As Chief Justice Potter Stewert said when referring to pornography: “I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.” Substitute old for pornography and it remains true: you'll know it when you become it.

Me, I'm just a pup at 62. You?

Mike

Maintenance

"There's birth, there's death, and in between there's maintenance." Tom Robbins

Maintenance. I hate maintenance. What is maintenance? Everything that we have to do to maintain the accepted status quo.

Take dusting. Is there a more boring fruitless activity on earth? You dust, you wait, the dust returns. All housework falls under maintenance: dusting, vacuuming, doing dishes, everything cleaning related. All that you accomplish is the forlorn opportunity to repeat the process endlessly. Ad nauseum. Until death you do depart.

Or personal hygiene? How much of your life has been spent brushing your teeth, taking showers, shaving? A whole lot. Yet unless you are a hermit, maintain you must. Given all our wonderful technology why can't we invent self-cleaning teeth. How could that be harder than going to the moon? After all, we've had self-cleaning ovens forever.

Washing clothes, cutting grass, changing oil: all meaningless maintenance. Do you really enjoy any of it?

I recently joined a gym. You might think that is some kind of meaningful activity. I work hard and regularly there. I already see and feel results. But why? At 62, it is unlikely that I will end up on the cover of Men's Fitness, that 23 year old super models will fling themselves upon my buff carcass or that I'll win an Olympic gold.

Nope. It's really just a pathetic attempt to stave off inevitable decrepitude; to maintain my faltering body for a while longer. Maintenance. That's all it is.

I think that (if we think) the older we get the more meaningless maintenance becomes. We know that the end of maintenance is death. We know it. Yet we maintain, because it is expected, because we always have. And we always will.

One virtue of minimalism is that the less space and stuff you have, the less maintenance you have to perform. Yes!

Mike

Time, Time, Time...

What if you didn't have to be anywhere or do anything other than a few medical appointments? Of course, you would still have maintenance tasks, but not many. What would you do with all that time?

One of the central tenets of minimalism is that you give up money for time to do what you want to.

If you have some overwhelming passion like painting or music or writing then you are in heaven.

But what if like me, you don't.

In the Army if you got asked why you weren't doing anything the standard safe reply was that you were AWF – awaiting further orders. We have been taught since very early on by parents, teachers, officers, bosses, etc. where to be, when to be there, what to do and for how long. In other words, we have been taught to await further orders.

Suddenly there are no orders to follow. This feels very weird. It can lead to a type of paralysis. You are suddenly responsible for yourself.

At the moment, I am confronting this problem.

I am 62, live alone and have few nearby friends. On top of that I have never been a joiner and don't have much money.

There are still a lot of free or cheap activities out there that I might enjoy. But I don't enjoy doing them alone.

So what to do with all that time? So far I have joined a gym and attend it regularly. I write this blog. But that's about it. That still leaves a lot of time. There are books to read and movies to watch, but that can be done to boredom.

I intend to solve this problem. I'll keep you up to date on how as I figure it out.

Until then,

Mike

The Numbers

It is said that numbers don't lie, so I'm going to give a close accounting of the numbers over this month.

My SS check is $1170. I have $1398.72 in savings. That's it, my whole financial world. The goal is to live off the $1170 exclusively. The savings are for bumps like car insurance and inspections

$1170 per month = $39 per day. However, there are also fixed expenses that must be paid, which lower the daily amount.

Rent: $233. Electric: $150. Internet: $55. Phone: $50. Gym: $10 This comes to $498 which reduces my daily allotment to $22.40 per day. Food, fuel and everything else must come out of that number.

There are possibilities for cuts. I could lose my Internet and just go to cafes when I needed to. I have done that before. It works, but as I use my wireless kindle for entertainment, I'll hold off for now.

Can one man live on $22.40 per day in America? We will see by closely monitoring each amount spent daily. For example, yesterday I spent a total of $13.98. I will keep a daily count and report it in my posts.

Attitude is a big part of this. If I find that I am feeling deprived that counts against the experience.

For now,

Mike

By Way of Introduction

So today I got my gummint social security check (actually direct deposit) of $1170. My experiment in minimalism begins today with this post.

So what is minimalism? It is actually a philosophy of life. It's core can be found in the question, “how much is enough.” It simply asks the question about your stuff, “what is necessary; what adds value to my life?” The answer will vary greatly from person. There is no dogma involved. You proceed by eliminating everything that doesn't fulfill the answers to those quest. The change involved can be marginal to radical. I will discuss it more later and provide information on the best books and blogs that I have found.

Although my target audience is aging baby-boomers, most of the material might be of use to anyone.

The possible topics are endless: food, clothing, housing, health care, transportation and entertainment are but a few. I will be looking at all these and more.

In my next post I will break that $1170 down for you and provide complete financial transparency on-going.

Until then,

Mike

Focus

I've decided that this blog needs a focus. So, I'll mainly be writing about how to live, hopefully well, on $1170 per month. That is my Social Security check. That's it. Can it be done? How? I think so. I'll let you know as we go along.

This will give me a chance to write about my two main interests: minimalism and anarchism.

But the real focus will be on being old, living well on little money and being happy.

A lot of the essays will be aimed at older readers, but I think will be of use to younger folk as well.

The first post will be next Wednesday, because that's check day for me. That's right, you don't get your check on the first, it depends on your birthday, so mine is the third Wednesday of the month.

See you then.

Don't Thank A Veteran This Memorial Day

I might as well get this out of the way. I promised I wouldn't rant any more so I'll keep it toned down.

This Memorial Day, don't thank a veteran for his service. It's an inane and insincere thing to say. And it's all about you.

Instead, apologize. Apologize that he had to serve and you didn't. That would be honest and sincere.

I have a friend who took two in the leg for the 4th Infantry division near An Loc. It negatively affected the rest of his life. I had a brother-in-law who won the Distinguished Service Cross with the 173d Airborne near Saigon. His life became a downward spiral to an early death.

Your thanks for that kind of suffering are meaningless. Your apology might not be.

Enjoy your burgers.

"What is learned in combat is never forgotten." - Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam

Home To What?

Home from the asphalt seas. Six days and 600 miles. Mobi, 240,000 miles and all, ran like a Formula One car the whole way. You just need faith, and one of the few things I believe in is Mobi.

Didn't catch any fish to speak of, but I had a great time and great company. I'll call that a success.

The question now is now what. I am officially retired. No more wage-slavery.

The actuaries say I have 18 more years. What to do? I have some ideas, but what I need is a plan.

Hopefully, that will take shape soon.

Stay tuned.

This Will Be Hard

A good friend pointed out that my rants are futile and tedious. That's what friends are for. In his honor, I will try to refrain from ranting. I can't promise complete cessation, but I'll try.

Hiatus

I'm travelling from the 14th to the 19th so the blog will be still for awhile.

I'll be hitting the road in my 97 Saturn, Mobi. She only has 240,000 miles on her so it should be no problem.

Stay tuned.

Mike

Usury

Usury is the most foul and destructive act of lending money at interest. It was forbidden by all major religions (until they discovered it could make them rich). Mainly, it was considered heresy, the creation of something from nothing, which rightly only God could do.

Pound referred to it as: "usury, age old and age thick."

"Dante puts the usurers in the lowest sub-circle of the seventh circle of hell, with others whose sins are regarded as doing violence against nature and nature's God; many people have noted that usurers are placed deeper into hell than violent murderers, violent suicides, blasphemers, and sodomites. Dante regards usurers as perverting art, i.e., productive skill, by means of which we are supposed to produce and create and thereby imitate the goodness of God. Usury is the anti-art: it produces nothing substantial, being just a set of multiplication games with money, and therefore does not really contribute anything to 'earning one's way and furthering humankind'. It merely gives the illusion of doing so, and is therefore a sort of mockery of both human reason and divine providence -- indeed, a sort of universal violence against neighbor, God, and one's own reason, an extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which you do the most damage with the least effort.

The Violent in Dante's hell suffer violent punishments; the punishment of the usurers is to sit while futilely and wearily trying to ward off with their hands the violent, whipping winds that sometimes shower them with burning sand and sometimes cover them with flaming fire."

The Koran says:  One who takes interest, his belly shall be filled with an equal quantity of fire by Allah. If he has earned more from the interest money, Allah will not accept any of his deeds. And till even a grain of interest remains with him, Allah and his angels will continue to curse this man.

It wasn't the telemarketers that Jesus attacked in the Temple, it was the money changers (usurers).

Even the Jews, infamous usurers, though not by choice, initially forbade the practice.

And yet there is hardly an Amerikan who is not in the usurers' thrall (aren't you)? Paying interest is another form of slavery which Amerikans have embraced. There will be a reckoning for this greed. Invented money does not last forever. Ask any Weimar German.

A Few People I'd Like To Have Lunch With When I'm Dead

Dead people are no doubt bored, so I'm sure these folks would be happy for free food and conversation. Of course, this is just a partial list, subject to addition and deletion. Feel free to add your own in comments.

• Buddha, but a light lunch.
• Hitler, come on, who wouldn't.
• James Joyce, just to mock him.
• Hemingway, but just drinks.
• Reagan, to deliver some Depends.
• Bakunin, for mutual aid.
• William Butler, my ancestor who survived most of the Civil War battles.
• Audrey Hepburn, but a date, not lunch.
• Ingmar Bergman, just to cheer me up.
• Ervin Schrödinger, about that cat.
• Shakespeare, because I've always wanted to meet an extra-terrestrial.
• Ezra Pound, to tell him he was right about usury.
• God, to let him know how disappointed I am.
• Richard Nixon, so I could drive a stake through his heart.
• Julia Child, just to hear her voice.
• Lenin, because he was a self-starter.
• Mozart, because he would be fun. 
• Emma Goldman, to dance.

Come on, I'm sure you can add to the list. Don't be shy. 

Fucking New Phone

My ancient cellphone died. Had to replace it with a smart phone. Samsung Galaxy. No Choice.

Smart phone my ass. It has been nothing but a hassle since I got it.

Phones should make phone calls. I don't want the weather in Ukraine. I don't want people emailing me on my phone. Don't want to play games or listen to music. Sure as hell don't want to watch movies. What kind of moron watches movies on a phone?

Ned Ludd where are you? Call me.

43 Years

Forty-three years ago today I got drafted and became an unwilling soldier. I should have said no, but that just wasn't in a small town kid's vocabulary. As long as there are soldiers, willing and unwilling, there will be wars. Until - finally - young men find the courage to say no. I'm not holding my breath.

I Love The Flag...

Kent State

Forty-four years ago today the Amerikan Establishment decided to teach its youth that enough was enough. So they sent soldiers to murder unarmed students. Four died. No one was ever held accountable. The lesson was learned. Since then the screws have continued to tighten. Who remembers? Who cares?

Beware The PC Thought Police

The Donald Sterling affair is a travesty. An American citizen expressed private thoughts in what he thought was a private situation and has been pilloried for them.

This is not about what he said or your opinion of it. You can have whatever opinion you prefer, as long as it is PC.

But he can't even think "inappropriate" thoughts? Where does this end?

Is he a racist? I don't know. The tape shows that he doesn't want to hang out with black people. Is that racist? Is it a crime? We can't choose with whom we associate? What about black people who don't want to hang out with white people? Oh, that's OK because they aren't white. PC only works one way.

I don't want to hang out with stupid people. Shoot me.

What would you expect from a Donald Sterling anyway? He is a member of the "Greatest (read racist) Generation," he is obscenely rich, he dumped his wife of fifty years for a bimbo and (gasp!) he is white.

And how about the gold digging cunt? She broke federal law by secretly taping him. But she's not white so that's OK.

You should be allowed to think and say what you want, no matter how stupid or reprehensible it may be. If not, the First Amendment is nullified. This whole travesty is not about racism, but free speech. The PC police do not believe in free speech.

If you believe in freedom, this should frighten you.

If not, you are stupid, and as noted above, I don't want to hang out with you.

Wage Slavery

A wage slave is anyone who trades their time (life, soul, individuality, freedom) for wages or a salary. That would be at least 90% of working Amerikans. I have spent my life in this pernicious servitude. I'll bet you have too.

The rationale for this is that you have been brainwashed to believe that getting that money to buy stuff is essential to happiness. It isn't.

A wage slave submits to drug tests, background checks, credit checks, forced physicals, etc. He is told when he has to be where and for how long. He is told where or if he can smoke. He is told when he can eat or take a break. He punches time clocks. He is watched, monitored, evaluated, disciplined. He is owned. And then he is supposed to be thankful for having a job.

All this has been brought to you by the usurers and their consumer capitalist cronies.

Actually, chattel slavery was a far more honest institution. A black slave knew he was a slave. We don't. We have been propagandised into accepting this horror as normal or even good. That's why chattel slaves constantly revolted, but Amerikan wage slaves never will. We are too busy buying more stuff and paying the serpent usurers. And thinking how lucky we are for getting the crumbs that we get.

The 26th is my last day as a wage slave. After that, I will never take any work that involves wages or salary. Fuck the masters. I'll work under the table or as a 1099, but never again will I sell my time.

Like Scarlet O'Hara, I swear...

Cunt

Didn't see that coming, did you?

This is considered by most women as the ultimately vile word.

How to defuse this verbal bomb?

Simple: do what the Brits do, remove the gender aspect from it. In merry England cunt just means ass-hole, male or female, as in: "He's nothing but a bloody, fucking cunt." This could refer to a plumber.

As Lenny Bruce said, there are no dirty words, just dirty minds.

Anyone who disagrees with me is obviously a bloody, fucking cunt.

And you know who you are...

Wogs

Nigger, spic, greaser, wet-back, gook, kike, towel head, dot head, cracker, et all. So many nasty insulting appellations for those we disdain. What we need is an ecumenical insult.

I propose wog.

The British upper-class, one of the silliest, most useless groups in history, brilliantly came up with this word for anyone different from them. It meant blacks, indians (the ones they owned), orientals (no asians then), even Frenchmen. Great word. One Empire; One insult.

Let's bring it back and abandon all those specific insulting words. If we all use it for those we hate, it won't mean anything nor will it sting. Too general.

Rainbows will appear everywhere. Oh joy!

Political Correctness

I loathe political correctness. One wonderful freeing aspect of being out of teaching is being able to reject that vile, dishonest culture, to be able to call a spade a spade.

Political correctness has poisoned our language, thought and actions.

A few examples:

• Chairperson -Logically, a chair that can walk and talk. A word without balls.
• Person of color -  The PC way of saying "colored person," which without the preposition is somehow racist.
• Woman/Girl - Even females can't exactly define this distinction. From now on they are all females to me, or bitches, whichever is true.
• Challenged - Actually means crippled, feeble or stupid. Taken to absurd extremes. Fat people are weight challenged. Right.
• Feminist - a word so debased by feminists that they can't define it. See females and bitches above.
• Multi-cultural - What was wrong with "many cultures?"
• Diversity - A cover word to hide the fact that different races, cultures, religions etc. often hate and wish to exterminate each other, but we must never mention that, ever. Hence, diversity is a good thing.

I could go on endlessly. Lucky for you I'm tired and won't. But there will more to say on this later.

Necessity

Every aging boomer should have a dog and/or cat.

Of course which to get depends on your personality. If you have low self-esteem and require slavish worship and approval definitely get a dog. If you enjoy serving and being disdained, go for the cat.

Both are good for companionship.

And if you are prone to being broke, choose one that will fit your microwave. Emergency protein...

Giving It Up

Finally, after 62 years of purity, yesterday I lost my Wal-Mart virginity. Yes, I defiled myself by entering the Temple of Mammon. I am cherry no more.

I needed to do this as part of research for a book I am writing.

I bought a fishing licence and some fishing sundries. I then toured the entire edifice.

Sadly, no one greeted me.

But I did see why Americans love the place so much. It's like a giant strip mall under one roof. Also, like much of America, it is an ugly place where you can buy stuff. Stuff is the real religion of consumer brainwashed Americans. Why wouldn't they love it? For them, it's a church.

As for me, no serious damage was done. I came home, removed my hazmat suit, took a shower and went about my day.

By the way, other than specials, I didn't find the prices all that low.

I doubt that I will return. I don't worship in that church.

Still losing it was a good reminder of just what virginity is worth: nothing.

Anarchy/Anarchist

Words, words, words... so many and so few understood.

Take anarchy. This word has come to connote violence, disorder and chaos. Which is exactly why so few anarchists like or use it. When people hear anarchy, they think barbarism.

An anarchist is not someone who espouses violence, disorder and chaos. An anarchist is simply a person who insists on his own right to freedom and happiness, to not be coerced.

As Ursula K. Le Guin said: An anarchist is someone who chooses, and having chosen, takes responsibility for his choice.

Anarchism is not a system, political or otherwise. It is simply free individuals trying to achieve happiness by living according to their own best interests. They may do this alone or through mutual aid, but it has no reality except in the free, individual human mind.

We are at a historical crossroads. Our bloated systems are destroying us and our world. Only we - as individuals - can save ourselves. The plutocrats and oligarchs will do whatever they can to preserve their own money and power. They own the government so expect no help from it. Quite the contrary.

But quietly, like an antibody, anarchists resist the corruption of this diseased civilization. While there is no guarantee, there is a chance they may heal it. A chance worth taking.

We shall see.

Running?

When I was young, I ran six miles three times a week and ten miles once. No shit.

I just got back from my first run in decades. One block. One. No shit.

It felt terrible. And long.

You can't really even call it running. Running involves a stride. I don't stride. I hobble.

And yet I shall persevere. Anything this miserable must be healthy.

Fatigue

I just finished a four hour shift at the garden center where I work part-time. Four hours. Nothing hard, just moving plants and watering. I am exhausted. My feet and back are killing me.

Just ten years ago I worked at another nursery doing hard labor: digging up and transplanting large trees and shrubs, etc. I not only enjoyed it, it made me stronger.

What has changed? Ten years, that's what. Decrepitude, like rust, never sleeps. And it is cumulative.

I think this is my last year in this business.

Time passes, things change. And not always for the better.

Aging is basically the build-up of error: error at the genetic level, error at the cellular level. Cells normally repair themselves; that's why you heal when you get a cut. But even the mechanism of repair eventually falls apart.

Michio Kaku

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/aging_2.html#ef0GPJ8o2zSLPVMt.99

Aging is basically the build-up of error: error at the genetic level, error at the cellular level. Cells normally repair themselves; that's why you heal when you get a cut. But even the mechanism of repair eventually falls apart.

Michio Kaku

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/aging_2.html#ef0GPJ8o2zSLPVMt.99

Aging is basically the build-up of error: error at the genetic level, error at the cellular level. Cells normally repair themselves; that's why you heal when you get a cut. But even the mechanism of repair eventually falls apart.

Michio Kaku

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/aging_2.html#ef0GPJ8o2zSLPVMt.99

Aging is basically the build-up of error: error at the genetic level, error at the cellular level. Cells normally repair themselves; that's why you heal when you get a cut. But even the mechanism of repair eventually falls apart.

Michio Kaku

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/aging_2.html#ef0GPJ8o2zSLPVMt.99

Why I Am Not A Prepper

A prepper is someone who busies herself preparing for the coming global economic, commercial, cultural collapse. He does this by hoarding goods and making plans against that inevitable day.

If you really don't believe this is inevitable you might read, The Five Stages of Collapse by Dmitry Orlov, or any number of other such tomes. They rarely agree on matters of timing, but they all agree that it is a matter of when, not if. Or, you can just ignore the whole thing, which is what most people do.

Preppers come in all varieties. Some are political, some are not. Some are racists, some are not. They can be right or left wing. Some are violent, some are not. What they have in common is the belief that if they just take the right steps, the will survive.

Of course, on this point, they are all wrong. Some might survive longer than others, but none will survive the long term alone.

They believe in hoarding guns, ammo, explosives, food and everything else you can imagine. This will allow them to defend themselves and eat.

Alas, when the collapse occurs, there will be far too many others, both private and governmental, who also have guns, etc. who will want to take their stuff, and will.

Oddly, few preppers have any military training. They read Soldier of Fortune and think they are trained. They are not.

As Napoleon pointed out: God fights on the side with the heaviest artillery. They won't have it.

As for me, I know I won't survive. I'm 62 and not really in fighting shape. I am also a published critic of the government. I expect the government will perform its paybacks very quickly. An AK-47 isn't going to change that.

What should you do? Not for me to say. But trained, organized, well armed soldiers and police will always defeat untrained, disorganized, poorly armed civilians.

And even if the authorities disappear, the famished masses of survivors will be eyeing you hungrily. I'm told human tastes like pork. I don't intend to find out.

I will live in a civilized society or I don't care to live at all.

And, Jesus, I didn't even mention zombies...

Thanks

Thanks to all who have chosen to view this blog. Why anyone should care what one more ageing boomer should have to say about anything eludes me. God knows there are more than enough of us out there babbling than needs be.

If you enjoy this, check back from time to time. I do not intend to limit myself in any way. This is for me. If I choose to rant, observe, report, quote, or just chat, I will.

I doubt you will agree with all I have to say. I am, after all, a rational anarchist and as such hold some strong, unorthodox views.

Hope you return soon.

Mike

PS: Comments make a blog fun. Please leave any you feel like. I will appreciate them.

Summer Bucket List

Just a few modest goals during my period of freedom from June to August. No doubt they will change, as everything does.

• A few brief road trips - perhaps one to TN.
• Write an ebook on minimalism and ageing.
• Try vertical gardening.
• Quit smoking.
• Practice living on just Social Security.
• Fish.
• Walk.
• Eat well.
• Revel in never having to teach again!
• Practice contentment.

Modest, I know, but mine.

Geezer Time

More and more, I find myself waking early in the morning. Four AM; geezer time.

Time to be alone in the world. Time to remember dead friends and lost loves. Time to consider what went wrong and right and how I came to be here. Time to remember the scars of war and peace.

Time for the blues:

"Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too."
"Nobody loves you when your down and out."
"My brother's in Korea and my sister's down in New Orleans."
"The thrill is gone."

Time to write and think.

Geezer time. All that's left. All the time in my world.

Sadly

“We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes”
― Charles Bukowski

Why?

Why write this blog? After all, it isn't political or literary, as my others have been. Moreover, I don't plan, past a few friends, to advertise it.

Well, this is my personal diary of what it's like to live alone and be ageing in America. It is a reflective blog; whatever I feel like reflecting upon. Will it be of interest to anyone else? It doesn't matter. This is for me.

There are still things I have to say and I won't feel I've said them until they are written down. That's my generational bias towards print.

Perhaps they are banal things, but they matter to me. There are also topics I'd like to explore. Again I won't feel that accomplished except through writing.

Anything goes. Any idea or topic is fair game. All that matters is that I want to do it. If you enjoy it too, so much the better.

School

I am going to have a lot to say about school in this blog. After all, I've spent a good deal of my life in school as a student, teacher and professor. Obviously, I've read and thought a good deal about this. Most of what I have to say will be negative because most of my experience has been negative.

For now let me quote one of the great thinkers ever, Ivan Illich: "School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is." - Deschooling Society.

The truth is, you don't.

Minimalism

David Foster Wallace told a tale of three fish. A large old fish and two young fish were swimming toward each other. When they met, the old fish said to the young fish, "How's the water. They swan on. Finally one little fish said to the other, "What's water?"

 This is as important a parable as Jesus ever uttered.

While none of the fish can escape the water, the crucial thing is to be aware of it. So neither can we escape the water of usury founded capitalist consumerism. But, we can become aware of it and change how we swim.

Minimalism is a way of saying fuck you to the water. It is a way of saying. I may have to swim here, but I will consciously choose how I swim. That's huge.

A minimalist says I will live on as little as possible. I will participate in proletarianized labour as little as possible. He says to the usurers, I will not feed you through debt. He chooses to live (well) on the cast-offs of consumer society. He says I will not watch your lies on TV. I will avoid the State as much as I can. I will fly (as much as still possible) under the radar. I will live my life. I will live my truths. I will be me.

This cannot be done perfectly. It can be done in many ways and to many degrees. The trick is to realize how it suits you and then do it. Learn to swim as you wish. Be your own fish.

Anarchism

One of the best definitions of an anarchist comes from Ursula K Le Guin:

"One who, choosing, accepts the responsibility of choice."

When was the last time you chose, regardless of the propaganda of the state or any other hierarchy, to ignore a stupid rule and accepted the responsibility for your choice? That's when you were an anarchist, whether you knew it or not. The more often you do it, the more of an anarchist you become.

Another comes from Robert Heinlein:

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do" 

TANSTAAFL!

Minimalism

Minimalism is just a word describing frugality as a lifestyle. It is how I survive and continue to survive.

It is also the only anarchist way to live well in the capitalist money economy while participating in it as little as possible. I love that.

What is it? Well, if you are living in the usurious money economy you have two choices. The normal way is to try desperately to make and borrow more money to feed your debt and buy more stuff..  The other is to make as little as possible, have no debt and acquire no extraneous stuff.

By adapting the latter, I have lived a good life for the past ten years with a minimal amount of pain, a maximal amount of satisfaction while never earning more than 30K per year and usually no more than 25K.

Is it just another word for poor? Absolutely not. Poor means having no choices; minimalism means consciously making them. I will discuss this at length in later posts and provide resources for those interested.

The Joys of Geezerhood

I am now a sexagenarian. I like that word. It sounds sexier and more distinguished than living fossil. Living in a country that violently recoils from, repudiates and denies ageing, I think it might be fun to some up with some good things about getting old. So here is a short list. I'll add to it from time to time under the same heading. Feel free to leave a comment if you have one or more you would like to have added.

• You can't die young.
• You know what comes next - not much.
• You might discover the important difference between loneliness and solitude.
• Odds are, you don't have a mortgage and no one is going to give you another.
• You get tired of stuff and accumulating it.
• As all the news is about the same as 40 years ago (just new names and places), you no longer have to care about current events.
• You don't have to care much how you look because old people are invisible in America.
• Lifetime warranties are shorter than ever.
• You can say anything you like and then claim not to remember and maybe not even be lying.
• No one expects much from you.
• You no longer have to worry about getting old.

More?

Reading

Today I read Ursula Le Guin's marvellous rendition of the Tao Te Ching. I have read many renditions of this book over the years. I consider it the root wisdom text from which all others flow or derive.

In addition, it is consummately anarchistic. You can see that much of Le Guin's excellent work, especially The Left Hand of Darkness, The Lathe of Heaven and The Dispossessed are heavily influence by it.

Why don't more so-called feminists know these works? Oh, because they are too busy reading Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf because they require no thought. Oops, how not PC of me.