Deviant Rambling

Scrolling through the news this morning I came across an article outlining a new package of legislation regarding climate change. As I began to wade through the morass of details about the potential bill I could feel my eyes glazing over and my attention being sapped by anything and everything else. The feeling that took over must be the most powerful tool in Washington: making the average person feel like they aren’t smart enough to understand the details of a bill.

This feeling is insidious. It immediately makes me want to check out and just assume that any action with the words “billions” and “climate change” that is generally affirmative in tone is a step in the right direction. But this could just be a trick of the language.

Will I read the entire text of this proposal? Hell no.
Should I? Probably.

I know that the puppets in Washington are banking on this complacency. Given the very clear and present dangers of a recession and inflation, the climate feels like a problem completely out of reach to me. How can I possibly spare figurative energy to contribute to a conversation about the literal energy problem?

This makes me wonder how many times I have had to make this trade off in my adult life. The amount of cultural disturbances that have occurred in my lifetime is significant. There has been pain and suffering on a societal level. Every time it feels like we have reached an all-time low, the bottom drops out and we plummet further. Just making it through day to day life can feel like a struggle. Knowing that the climate will eventually kill all of us just looms as the unavoidable leviathan that we have created..

Could we all do more to help? Sure. The cost for doing so will be our lives and livelihoods. The agreement many of us in is one with print too fine to read. We were sold the idea that the people in charge had our interests in mind when we elected them.

Any amount of observation during an election year (Like this one…) proves this idea is sleight of hand. Get in power, stay in power, make your money, and repeat until you can’t win the popularity contest any more or you can retire comfortably. It is a world completely insulated from the real one the rest of us experience. This false sense of security occasionally gets disturbed and it feels like change is coming through traditionally violent channels, but then we all concede again.

As I left the article in question behind in favor of more interesting matters, I felt this concession keenly. It felt as though I was conceding a planet, because in some far flung sense, I was. The idea that we might accelerate to some inevitable cataclysm seems like a foregone conclusion. Our arrogance knows no bounds. But the planet is a living thing and will fight to survive. We will just be another casualty in a decorated history of trial and error.

We are making headlines through our dedication to setting the clock back 50 years. There’s a case of a 10 year old child from Ohio coming to Indiana to get an abortion because she was raped. Let’s just get this part out of the way now: If this isn’t an exception to the rule then stop pretending you have welfare in mind at all.

But they didn’t bother pretending. The state’s AG immediately called the record of the physician into question publicly. Joke’s on that asshole, though. The physician who had the unenviable task of providing an abortion for a 10 year old has a completely spotless record. Don’t think for one second that the AG will stop with this one instance, though. This was an opening salvo in a war against choice.

Can we just stop for a second and restate the facts real quick?

A 10 year old girl was raped by a 27 year old man. The 10 year old girl had the incredible misfortune of then becoming pregnant. At 10. It is a personal tragedy on a scale I’ve never witnessed. The suffering surrounding this is potentially insurmountable for everyone immediately involved. What happened after the discovery of the pregnancy was frankly none of our business but thanks to the national conversation, that very personal information is entirely public.

The fact that I am even harping on this information is a sign that something is terribly wrong. I shouldn’t have the information because no one should.

Now circle back to the political aspect of this shit show. As is tradition, the Bible-thumping super-conservatives are saying that the pregnancy should have been carried to term. Just what in the actual fuck is going through the minds of these people? IT’S A 10 YEAR OLD GIRL YOU FUCKING LUNATICS. Do you think this was just an accident among two consenting adults? It was a crime, perpetrated against a child. Her life is likely already ruined because of the fallout, but it 100% would have been ruined if she had been forced to carry to term. That’s if she didn’t just die outright.

Some of the same people who say the child should have carried to term are responsible for helping draft legislation to make abortion completely illegal in Indiana. There are proposed exceptions to the rule due to rape and incest cases but both of those should have a gigantic asterisk.

* – Only available to those who pursue an abortion within 8-12 weeks of conception. (I’m paraphrasing the wording here, the actual text is infuriating.)

That’s right. Even in cases of rape or incest, there will be a running clock on when a person can receive an abortion. In the proposed range, a person might have zero idea that they are pregnant. Nevermind the fact that they may still be processing a life shattering, traumatic event. I suppose the sanctity of life doesn’t apply to the person who has their life destroyed by the aforementioned rape or incest, though, does it? Come down off the cross, we need the wood for the fire that’s sure to follow.

There may be more than one nice day this week… More opportunities to get out and do some work around the house. I have officially become old because I look forward to it.

Won’t be long before I pick up some New Balance shoes, white tube socks, and jean shorts. I’m on my way to becoming a suburban dad without any kids to worry about. Going to have to start yelling at neighborhood kids and complaining about the volume of people’s music.

Better get to it. *dad stretch and groan*

Up at a reasonable hour today and got quite a few things done. For the first time in a minute, I feel as though I accomplished something today. It is all just stuff around the yard/home but it provides for a better environment so it’s a nice series of small victories.

Today was an unseasonably mild day with a nice breeze. This is ideal weather to get things done. Felt like fall this morning and it makes me wish it were here. But then we’ll be on our way to winter and hard pressed to find any daylight.

Take the good days when you have them.

The title is just a funny imaginary position I thought of. Someone who is a mid-level manager who specializes in mid-life crises. They would just oversee all of your actions and make sure they comply with all known standard practices for any mid-life crisis. They’d report to the company how you were performing within the bounds of said standard practices.

Are you pursuing a meaningless relationship with someone half your age?
Are you working toward a completely impractical vehicle of some sort? (Substitute any shiny status object in place of this.)
Are you drastically overhauling your appearance in some way to try and regain the youth which has evaded you for decades?
Are you trying to “reignite” the passion of a long dead and buried marriage?
Are you considering a complete departure from your career trajectory to something exotic?
Are you ignoring all of the signs that happiness is not at the end of the road you’ve spent the past 30 years on?

Depending how your score in this and other metrics, you’ll be given instructions how to achieve an optimal mid-life crisis experience. The entire purpose of the position is to help someone destroy their own life for the foreseeable future.

Other than the fact that it’s management, I’d love to do the job. Steer people toward the cliff and help them press the gas, Thelma and Louise style.

In late summer 2021 I secured a loan for a pickup truck for use in the business. The loan was around 5 years and had an unreasonable interest rate. At the time, we were in need of such a truck to perform our operations effectively. When everything changed in December, I was of a mind to shore up all of my debts and this truck was immediately assigned to the chopping block.

I knew I had time to spare and continued to make the payments all the way through July but finally, mercifully, I found a buyer and the debt is officially cleared. This saved me 4 years of payments and full coverage insurance. Upon the completion of the sale at the bank, I felt an immediate burden lift from me. Not just the financial responsibility, but all of the time I just got back in my life.

This reduction also means I am one step closer to ending this chapter of my life. There are still some materials that I need to sell but I have more breathing room with this substantial debt cleared.

Freedom by 40 would be cool but I’m running low on time for that. Maybe I’ll aim for Freedom AT 40. Great time for a mid life crisis.

The man in my dream looked a lot like me but apparently his crimes were so serious they warranted the death penalty.
When I compare what I have to that dream being, I am wealthy.
There he sits, in waiting, ordered executed by the state.
Both of us borrow breath from the world, but mine come with relative ease.
We are equally important to the world and will ultimately experience that infinite moment just the same.
I woke up this morning with another opportunity to do whatever I like with my life and I won’t waste it.
Death gets us all in the end.

Today is a quiet day, save for the welcome, rhythmic tapping of rain on the sill.
Steady showers put me in a mind of gratitude.
As I see the rain, I see the world spring to life in response.
The dry time has ended, if momentarily.
It reminds me how desperately the West needs this life-giving bounty we are experiencing.
Some of my favorite places in this country I call home are experiencing a drought of unprecedented magnitude.
We have the means and capable humans to alleviate this scenario, but the arrogance to say it isn’t really a problem. Or worse, it isn’t OUR problem, because we don’t live there.
But we do live there. It’s in the same big, beautiful country we call home.
I want the West to have some of what we do, so they can continue to be who they are. A collective insanity prevents it from happening, and sooner than later, millions will have to migrate east.
A problem that took generations to become undeniable was completely avoidable.
I’ll have my memories of those vast and vacant landscapes all of my days. I cherish them as the treasure they are.
I want to collect new memories and stories, and it is my sincere hope that we all collectively lend a hand and make the collection of such memories possible.

I have stumbled upon a phrase that took hold in my mind earlier this morning, the concept of “Gainful unemployment”. The known saying is to describe someone as being gainfully employed. This would describe someone who has taken a traditional 9-5 job and is, by some measure, a productive part of society.

I am gainfully unemployed. I do not work in the traditional, 9-5 sense, and I am a productive part of my corner of society. I value my time so much that the idea of trading the traditional amount of it for money puts me off fundamentally. I accept that my opting out of a traditional life paints me with a broad brush. I alone will bear the weight of this decision, and I expect nothing from anyone. I will make my way as I see fit, and my success or failure is entirely up to me. It’s simultaneously invigorating and daunting to live this out in practice, but I honestly couldn’t live any other way. Working for myself my entire adult life has broken any chance I had at having a traditional career. That is never going to happen.

So long as I have what I need, can help the ones I love, and spend my time doing what I want, when I want, then it will be a life well lived. Standards are made to be challenged, and I have nothing better to do than issue the challenge. I own the outcome, I own my life.