Environmentalism – Page 2

WildernessPunk: What’s Up

I was thinking about how I started WildernessPunk eight, wow, eight years ago. Back then I had lost my boys, my job and everything I owned. I was living out of my backpack and spending most of my nights in the forest. Also, back when I began writing WildernessPunk, it was more of a journal in many respects. I spoke of my daily trails and tribs as well as my numerous travels and adventures, for as I have often said, the people who enjoy the greatest freedoms are the ultra rich and the poor with no strings and obligations.

While I was thinking about how WildernessPunk was originally more personal, I wondered if I could make it so again, but then realized for the present, at least, it remains a poor idea. It isn’t like I don’t have loads of fun and excitement or at least I feel like I do, it just seems like, despite its high points, my life has drifted back into more of the mainstream. Yep, that’s what taking care of two kids full time will do to you.

This in turn got me thinking about social interactions. Have you ever had someone ask you, “Hey, what have you been up to,” and have a hard time answering? You feel like you’re busy and doing a lot, but when someone asks you for a highlight, you realize you can’t think of anything notable enough to answer. You end up scrapping through the last two weeks to try to find something new to discuss or a funny story to tell, but they seem lackluster.

I like to think of myself as a stand up, interesting, funny, and exciting guy. On the day to day, I’m always busy, rarely doing anything like watching television or the like except maybe the last hour of the day while I’m winding down. I haven’t played a video game in 23 years and have started new and continued with many of my older hobbies. I stay creative starting and finishing projects and attempt to help others do the same.

Still, the most productive day in the world can sound boring to your buddy.

AB: “I had a rocking day yesterday. I wrote seven pages and finished a new awning.”

Buddy: “Nice.”

Perhaps it comes down to, and part of me thinks this is sad, human interactions. Humans like hearing about humans. They don’t want to hear too much about a cool lizard you saw, or how you turned a sofa into a table, they usually find the argument you heard in the Safeway parking lot more interesting.

What is interesting anyway? I guess we all think different things are interesting. But even if poker might be one of your favorite things in the world, but you might still not want to listen to another ‘bad beat’ story. Let’s try to break down what might be the general things which most people could consider an interesting topic to discuss.

Ear Perking Topics:

Humor
Stories involving aggression
Relationship tales, but usually the worse the better
Bad luck and injury tales
Crime and drug stories
Politics and ‘us versus them’ rhetoric
And I guess I have to include sports

Think about what sort of things are popular on the various plastic rectangles we stare at. People like supernatural and fantasy shows, true crime, comedies, action, and drama. For most of us these things happen between never and rarely, except for drama and when it comes to our own lives, we usually don’t want it.

One might mention reality shows or all the social media folks just focusing on how great they are. However, things like reality shows are usually just showing the 30 minutes high(low)lights from 168 hours of filming multiple people. Influencers are just giving people 30 second soundbites before they head off to bury their heads in their plastic rectangles for the next four hours.

So how does the modern person overcome this lacklusterness? Being a good story teller helps. I can make my wife laugh by telling her what happened to me in the grocery store line. In general, there is not automatic solution but I do have a remedy of sorts.

I believe the more you do, and getting out of your home is usually better than remaining there for this, the more you have a chance of having something interesting happen to you. Think about it. How interesting is it talking to somebody about how you wasted the last few days of your life on a chair staring at plastic while playing video games, streaming shows, or binging social media. You might have seen a tight movie or really enjoyed a game, but how interesting are those forty hours of video games going to be for anyone listening to you describe it?

Compare this too real world experiences which are usually novel, sometimes exciting, and quite often funny. I’m not saying your trip to Safeway will make your friend laugh every time, but you’re probably more likely to view something weird there than sitting in your chair. Seeing the guy kick his cell phone down the produce alle might not be Game of Thrones, but it was something you saw with your own eyes and it was real. Truth isn’t stranger than fiction, but it does have a lower bar.

Thanks for listening, now go get some air.

If you feel inclined you can check out one of my novels here and I guarantee Dak lives and exciting life.

WildernessPunk: Narcissism, Debates, and Cultural World View

With the first, and probably last of the 2024 Presidential Debates coming up, I figured it would be the appropriate time to dig into the roots of the situation the United States is finding itself in the midst of. In my opinion the voters choice comes down between picking an elderly man which can function given the right assistance and support but will end up being little more than a figurehead during another term. Or we can choose a self serving evil man with profound mental illness who, if elected, will be the oldest president at the start of his term.

Just to put it out there, I’ll choose spacey over evil every time.

I’m also just going to come out and quickly state, voting for a person who has attempted to cancel democracy is an evil act and no, your stupidity won’t absolve you.

But tell us how you really feel…

I’m going to back up a bit. I like debating probably more than the next guy, and I’m reasonable skilled at the art. Just ask the midnight crews around the campfire. However, diving back to the story during the first installments of WildernessPunk, I have lived with an unreasonable narcissist with severe mental illness. Not trying to brag, no just kidding, it was horrible, a true nightmare beyond belief.

However, I learned something during this time, a technique mostly disregarded these days, the ability to not attempt or need to prove you are right. It is freeing to realize you don’t need to prove your point no matter how certain you are you are. This also becomes easier when you’re dealing with people who don’t answer to logic, truth, and reason, no matter how eloquently they are presented.

I might be happy to get into a friendly debate, but I don’t need others to think I’m correct. The world is full of too many illogical people (See WildernessPunk 1 in 3), and I don’t have the time or inclination to educate the corrupted masses. What could I say in fifteen minutes which nine years of evidence couldn’t prove?

So why are people still following the orange monster?

To even the most casual observer, he is obviously a very racist, completely self-serving narcissist. He has no loyalty to allies. No one can work with him for much more than a year. Listen, if you were single would you date someone like that? I know evil is a subjective, perhaps even a religious concept, but by all standard definitions of evil, tRump is a hopelessly evil person. There will be no insight or redemption for this man or anyone who follows in his wake.

So why are people still supporting this horrible candidate who stands against what the US and most religions stand for?

Instead of diving into the propaganda machines and social media, I’m taking another avenue, let’s investigate one of the primary reasons cults work on people over time. Many people who join cults come to a point where they might disagree with a new outrageous tenant or demand asked of them. They might have a severe issue with certain things so why don’t the cards all come crashing down?

One of the primary reason people remain in this disintegrating situation is because deciding the path you’re following is wrong means you have to admit you’ve been an ignorant individual who has made horrible choices for the last nine years and there is really nothing harder for a person to admit. “Not only was I manipulated and wrong, but I’ve been wrong for years and years.”

Could you do it?

Also keep in mind anyone who’s gotten divorced has done it and a lot of people have gotten divorced. Many have escaped cults as well, but they report this is one of the strongest reasons they stayed far past when they should have. Sometimes it was easier for them to double-down despite the ludicrous nature of the cult, than to have the courage to admit they have been played like an ignorant dope for years.

This brings us back to Ernest Becker and his theory of Cultural World View which I have mentioned before. It would state if, let’s say, I try to talk to a tRump supporter and explain to him how he is an evil man in the mold of Hitler, but with only a tenth the intelligence, they will not be hearing my wise words about why tRump is a racist megalomanic who uses the masses like slaves to attempt to get what he desires. Instead, they will become defensive, because since they serve tRump and have chosen him, an attack on their leader will be seen as an attack on them, their decisions, and their lifestyle.

It isn’t so much the man himself as their choice to attach themselves to him emotionally. Since their support of tRump is part of their identity, an attack on tRump is a personal attack on them. If he is determined to be the worst president in modern times, then by association they have become a duped fool. So, they will obviously fight dentures and false nails to defend their mired leader and therefore be the one who, “Sees it how it really is.”

So what is my point here? Perhaps if someone is disgusted by tRump but only watching Fox News, a little data could shift their perspective, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to point out facts to a person who has had nine years to decode something as painfully obvious as tRump is the evil villain in this comic book we attempt to call US politics. If nine years of daily stupidity, insanity, and evil hasn’t proved it, what will me wasting nine minutes do?

However, if it pisses them off and I’m rolling with an icy cold one, I might just do it anyway.

Thanks for listening feel free to add your take below

If you like cyberpunk dystopia tales, please take a second to look over my Skinjumper novel.

WildernessPunk: Choices

When it comes to freewill and choices, we have all heard the usual Nature versus Nurture debate. After working in the mental health field for a quarter of a century, I concede, many of our choices are governed by how we were raised and what we’ve experienced. But at the same time, even though I was raised by a feminist activist, I’m still often thinking… boobies!

It might be easy to jump into your favorite side of this debate and dig in, and don’t get me started on predeterminism, but I’d like to toss a third factor into this discussion. This third concept is Choice.

Let me back up a little first. Since I began the process of moving into what I hope will be the last place I will ever live, I’ve been binge reading two Jonathan Maberry series. First, during the fall, it was his Pine Deep novels, and since then I’ve been sprinting through the Joe Ledger series.

Then, when I’m in the middle of my 6^th Joe Ledger novel, I find out JM is going to be in Tucson for the big University of Arizona Book Festival. Waking early on a Sunday, I head to the U to hear him speak on writing and designing villains. While speaking on how to develop an adversary for your protagonist, he mentioned he didn’t believe in nature and nurture as much as choice.

He explained one of his personal reasons why he thought this was true. When Maberry was young his father was abusive and beat him and his sisters. When he grew older, Maberry once asked his father why he’d been so horrible to them and his father had brushed it off by saying, “That was just how he was raised.” Maberry took this in and realized he had been raised the same way his father was, but had chosen not to be abusive, so in the end it remained his choice to follow this destructive legacy or break the dysfunctional mold.

In his eyes, nature didn’t make him an abuser and even though nurture could have, he still had a choice of how he would lead his own life and he walked his own path, which included never being physically abusive to anyone he cared about.

Of course this is just one man’s story, but I believe it shines light on an important point. If we had chosen to let nurture guide our hands what would the world look like now? Would we still be living in the dark ages, with people owning slaves, and women not being allowed to vote?

I think the speed with which our culture is changing has thrown the nurture argument under the electric bus. If humans never moved beyond what we’re taught, we would’ve never progressed to where we are now. People need to break away from how they might have experienced life to culturally and socially evolve.

Examples of mindsets we would all still possess if only Nurture controlled our Ethics:

Slavery is acceptable
Women are inferior
Children should be abused
The poor should be forced to die in wars against their will
No room for social and economic advancement
The poor can be ignored and used
Might always makes right
We need to worship various myths and believe unseen deities control our lives

I think we will find Nature is not much better. If we never evolved and made choices to improve ourselves and rise above our animal needs, we would see a world much different, and I doubt we would have advanced far enough to be able to engage in something as ancient as learning to herd animals.

Examples of mindsets and behaviors we would still retain if we let nature rule us:

Indiscriminate mating
Alpha male mating control
Food hording
Cross-male infanticide
No true language
No written language
No attempts at morals
No exploration
Slow/no innovations

Both lists could certainly go on, but I think you can see my point. In the debate between Nature and Nurture many fail to see our species and culture would have remained unable to advance if these were the only avenues we relied upon. Either we would have stayed in a prehuman evolutionary state, or we would be mired in our cruelest incarnations.

Over time it has been the forces of empathy leading to men and women making different choices than their forbearers which allowed us to advance beyond our more primitive animal state and our often barbaric and violent uncaring natures. Nature and Nurture may still influence, and at times control us, but as our species continues to advance and become more caring and free, it is the ability to make the right choices to socially evolve which will guide us to a better future and give us a chance to help all life survive on this overcrowded world we call home.

Grab my Cyberpunk novel here. Dak has been hired to chase down the Skinjumper clones, he biggest problem, he’s dating one.

WildernessPunk – Restless

I know I’m a lucky guy, an extremely happy guy. Sure, I’ve tasted defeat, drama, and trauma but I’ve pulled through, triumphed, and moved past obstacles which had once seemed one degree below insurmountable. I’m sure I’m not special in this. I would bet most of the people reading have suffered through similar experiences.

I’m not looking to dredge up old nonsense, instead I’m wondering why I’m feeling so restless and antsy lately. If you will allow me to wax personal for a moment, I have a wife sixty times better than I would have thought possible. Every day I wonder how such a fantastic person can even exist; let alone how I could be the one who gets to hug her. I have my children back and they went from traumatized and tortured to doing well and being happy most of the time. I have loads of free time to write, plant, get some carpentry in, and I get to game several times a month.

I’m living a life some people could only dream of, but why am I a little grumpy and oh so freaking restless?

Are there things I once had which I’m now missing? If there is it might just be silly things like writing in a tavern instead of my home or being inspired through homelessness and wanderlust. Why should I need things like waking up in the woods alone or driving through the desert with no destination in mind to ah…free my mind. And it isn’t like my mind isn’t freed. I’m writing this and not working in a coal mine or such.

Still, it’s there. Like an itch in the center of your shoulder blades.

Why, when I’m living the best life I’ve ever had, do I feel, as the 814 crew might say, a little slush core?

Self Imposed Suckage:

I’m going to discuss the past for a moment. Perhaps you can relate or perhaps you’ll think I’m more than a bit nuts. Either way, here goes.

When I was younger, I led a privileged life. I’m certainly not from some ultra rich family, but I had what I needed.

Growing up I always wanted to be tested. I liked to imagine what would happen if I had to face down a bear or a serial killer. Of course, I was tested here and there. I liked to challenge myself. I made my own house in a swamp when I was a teen. I have camped out for ten days with barely enough food and have even run out of beer!

Still, I feel like certain times I have put myself in hard situations on purpose. I could have gotten a great job after college, but what if I tried Meth instead. I’m not trying to rewrite history, but for a long time I only allowed myself to date women who I considered losers because I didn’t want to contaminate a good woman and yep, that became quite challenging.

Punk rocks squats, homelessness, and psycho chicks aren’t an easy path, but I really think a lot of it was testing myself. I’d had it so good, I needed to feel a challenge. I wasn’t able to hunt a boar for my dinner or rescue my mate from cannibals, so I settled on going on a road trip with a bunch of broke unreliable people.

Is any of this making sense to you? Maybe you feel you’re tested enough. But I’m not talking about living from paycheck to almost paycheck or having a shitty job or a crappy partner. I’m looking into the real dirt in your mouth, lost in the forest, type of thing. Humanity can cause you more troubles than a thousand pages could illustrate and yes, human versus human thrills can build character, but there’s still a different type of challenge one feels when you’re in a situation where all the fast talking in the world can’t save you and no one is coming to your aid.

Life Testing Attributes:

More potent if you are doing it alone
Nature is the ultimate test
Naturally occurring tests are better than invented/mainstream challenges (Skydiving etc)
The less resources, the greater the challenge
Both mind and body can be tested

Am I restless because I’m not being tested? Yes, I know I’m tested every day still. However, I think there is a difference between passing the test to be at a certain place at a certain time day after day versus getting trapped in a downpour, in the forest, and trying to make a protective roof out of bark so your laptop isn’t destroyed. How they differ is that one is a test of living through the grind while the other is unexpected chaos which you might never experience again.

Some might argue human situations are chaotic. I could test myself by walking down an alley at midnight and only run into trouble on my eighty-fourth try. Yet this brings up the weakness of human interaction tests. A woman meeting a man for a first date is taking a safety risk, but she could live her whole life without such things going wrong, while nature is more consistent. Every time I hike the Canyonlands it’s going to be hard.

I’m going to give these three types of challenges names and provide a quick definition.

Civilized Grind:

Experienced differently by everyone but usually involves repetitive challenges such as attending work, caring for children, cleaning, shopping, paying bills, and other tasks which keep a household living safely and productively.

Human Friction:

Whether physical or emotional, when someone must overcome challenges brought to bear against them by other humans.

Environmental Challenges:

When one is faced with challenges beyond human control such as the weather, temperature, and the natural setting.

So again, does my restlessness stem fromonly being tested by the Civilized Grind and not enough Environmental Challenges? Human Friction can challenge one too, but often dissolves to mere bickering and splitting hairs over mundainia. Harder human issues lead to stress and more often than not cause more troubled feelings than victories.

As a father of small children and a loving husband, I think I’d hesitate to say, I deserve a weeklong vacation in the forest…wish daddy luck, if I screw up, I’m not coming back. Also, long solo drives into the backlands seem inappropriate somehow. I’m not just risking myself. Not to sound egocentric, but my family needs me.

So what is an adventure seeking, but busy and responsible, WildernessPunker to do?

Here are a few ideas I have thought of which helped.

Bring the party to me.

Figure out a few ways to supply enough action that a few folks are willing to cruise over.

Construct things on the cheap

Make supplies/objects for yourself with reused resources in an environmentally friendly manner.

Embrace your creative drive

Whatever it is, feed the fire of your creative goals, dreams, and projects.

These are just a few ideas which help me keep restlessness at bay, but I think I’m still going camping anyway.

Thanks for your time and remember to embrace the adventure.

If you feel like it, consider looking up my Cyberpunk novel. Detective Dak is asked to hunt down all the clones in New Cluster but is in love with one of them.

WildernessPunk- Homeless

I’ve written about homelessness before, but mostly in regard to myself. People without traditional housing have been in the news more lately. If you don’t like it, too bad, you had better get used to it because the amount of homelessness in our country and worldwide is just going to be increasing as the woes of our troubled environment closes around our species like a industrial vise.

The lack of affordable housing and the number of people who are forced to sleep without adequate shelter is a truly terrifying situation. Perhaps in the past people could just live off the land and claim an unoccupied area for themselves, but for the most part those days are long gone. If there are areas where this is still possible, they are usually regions where no one wishes to live, and surviving is hard like the individuals living out of vehicles in the deserts north of Quartzsite Arizona and on the outskirts of the Mojave Desert in California. Otherwise, some people are just tossing up tents and hoping for the best, while others don’t have such basic supplies.

Books on this issue could fill bookshelves but I wish to, as usual, take this in a different direction than people usually go. Dipping for a moment into the bipolar nature of our current style of politics in this country lets take an overview of how each side regards the homeless. The left tends to see this as a horror which needs solving but has a hard time doing so. The Right tends to see the larger amounts of homeless in the “Blue States” as an indicator of the Left’s failure to provide for their own, while chasing the homeless from the Red States into the Blue States which just stretches the resources of those trying to find a solution for their own issues.

The Homeless as Heroes:

Thinking of people without stable housing as heroes might seem strange to some people. Of course, some of their day to day actions might appear to be heroic efforts compared to those of us who drive by them in our airconditioned/heated cars. When was the last time you walked ten miles to recycle cans in 110 degrees? Could you hump everything you own from one place to another all day just to try to bed down in a world of danger where no one wants you?

However, this isn’t the type of heroics I seek to discuss here. Again, I’d like to break down some of our modern ideologies down party lines. There are certainly many issues the Liberals and Conservatives endorse. I’m going to focus on one of the biggest platforms/beliefs systems for both sides of the fence and then prove to you how no one does better at them than the majority of our homeless.

Are you ready? It might be time to buckle in and get ready to throw your hypocrite hat into the nearest oil drum fire.

Why Liberals Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing

There is no population more environmentally healthy than the Homeless:

I’ve touched on this before. I’ve also outlined the data within the first several WildernessPunk articles which came out in the beginning of 2019. But to quickly summarize, there are almost no real environmentalists in the United States. The average person in the US has a Negative Environmental Impact about 7 times higher than the average individual in India. Most of us use ten or twenty times the resources and create ten to twenty times over the amount of pollution the United Nations recommend each of us use yearly.

It doesn’t matter if you recycle like a madman, bike to work, or become a vegan, I hate to say it, but if you are reading this, you’re an environmental criminal. Yes, we should do everything we can to take the edge off and try to live more simply, but yeah, almost no one in the USA is an environmentalist with the exception of the homeless.

A short list of things most people without housing do not participate in:

Driving
Using Utilities
Huge Amounts of Water Use
Streaming
Consumerism
Online Consumerism
Eating Exotic Foods

A Short List of Environmental Practices Many People Without Housing Engage In:

Recycle and Reusing Discarded Items Bound for the Landfill
Consuming Food which would have Gone to Waste
Utilize Less Desirable Living Spaces
Caring for Previously Unwanted Animals

So if concerns over Climate Change and protecting the environment are some of the most important issues we face, please realize all the homeless you see are doing twenty times a better job at protecting the Earth than anyone you know.

Why Conservatives Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing

For this to work I’m going to have to make an assumption, but since the assumptions is predominantly true, I’m going to make it and if you’re a Conservative and it doesn’t apply to you, I apologize in advance.

What I am proposing is, in the eyes of the New Testament, the homeless are being better Christians than you. Some of them more than others, but let’s face the facts as the Christian holy book lays them out.

Christian Hierarchy of Holiness:

God
Jesus
The Profits/Saints
Priests
Christian Families

This religion elevated individuals breaking away from the idea of the family and wandering alone. Having time to think on your own in quiet contemplation was considered far more holy and closer to God than being part of a family. Priests are considered more devote and prove it by forgoing romantic relationships and family. Jesus himself is quoted saying, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” (John ii 4) Avoiding sex is considered closer to the divine and lonely people living in the street are usually loners and don’t start families.

Of course, there are many families who endure homelessness together, but by Christian standards they would also be more holy. Everyone is guilty of consumerism, gluttony, and not giving what they could except those with nothing left to give. Score one more for the unhoused.

Lastly, many experts in the subject put the percentage of homeless individuals suffering from Mental Illness at 25% those others claim it is closer to 50%. In either case illnesses like schizophrenia will force people onto the streets if they don’t have outside support. One of the most common systems of schizophrenia is hearing voices. These voices often instruct a person on what is right and how they should be living a better life.

So Christains I would ask you this, what is more holy than an individual who has forgone his property, is wondering alone through the deserts, and being inspired by mysterious voices?

Make of this what you will but just remember the next time you walk by an individual living out there in the sun, whether you are a Liberal or a Conservative this guy is rocking out your belief system twenty times better than you.

Thanks For reading.

If you feel like it, consider looking up my Cyberpunk novel. Detective Dak is asked to hunt down all the clones in New Cluster but is in love with one of them.

WildernessPunk-Important

Before I start, I’m not coming out and saying this article is important, but it could be. Instead, I want to poke a sharp stick at what is important for you, me, and the other they. However, I’m looking to dig into something more timeless than what’s important in the current political scenes or what yesterday’s buzz words and click bait were.

Sure, some individuals might care how people voted in the last election or if you may think tRump shouldn’t go to jail because jail is only for poor people. But for me many of these mainstream values and click of the minute causes are designed more to distract you and sell products rather than give life real meaning.

What does give your life meaning?

Or in other words: what is important to you?

Opinions on modern issues might help define where you sit on the bell curve of human rights, but as usual, I seek to dig deeper. How do you measure your self-worth or perhaps the worth of another? What should your life’s true goals be and what sort of yardstick can we use on how well you achieved them. Or perhaps more important… are these goals a bunch of manmade, whitewashed bullshit?

Here are some traditional measurements of human accomplishments. Some have reached such status as to have obtained an almost mythical belief system. Others might be less mainstream and rush through the underground. If some appear sexist or uncool, don’t blame me, this is the world you live in.

Measures of Human Success

Personal Worth = Net Worth
The Individual = What They Create
Scene, You Hope What You put Into It = What You Get Out of It
Entertainment/Socializing = The More Enjoyment you Experience the better the Day Is

Personal Worth = Net Worth

This often seems to be the most popular means to measure someone’s importance and self-worth in the United States. I see a sort of Capitalism Karma in effect with how many people in my country regard the value of others. Might doesn’t make right, capital does. You can see a lot of how dare you insult this wealthy person? What gives an improvised person the right to condemn someone who is so successful? Somehow a teenager slinging drugs on the corner should be punished worse than a millionaire who steals the retirement funds of a thousand elderly.

Is having the most toys really the ultimate goal in life. Is it better to be wealthy or have a family who loves you, or friends who like you for who you are and don’t laugh at your jokes just because you invited them onto your boat. If your kids only talk to you so they won’t be cut out of their inheritance, I think you’ve missed life’s boat when you were busy being a workaholic to get yours.

Personal Mental Achievement = Your Psychological Growth

In case anyone was wondering, this is where religion goes. Until someone can prove to me something supernatural exists all methods of mental self-betterment are going under the importance of the psychological development umbrella. Whether you are meditating, receiving therapy, or think your prayers are being heard by a big sky daddy, it all falls into this same category for me. Some just work better than others.

I think growing wise is important. Sometimes I wonder how the huge mistakes I’ve made in the past would be so easy for me to avoid now. I guess this is because I’ve learned the hard way…

Gaining personal knowledge and awareness is important. Being smart is better than being ignorant. Being at peace with yourself and your world is better than living in a constant bundle of stress.

Still, one has to wonder how much intelligence and mental enlightenment is worth in the end. It seems to be the brain slows down as we age and outside of trivia games does the endless pursuit of knowledge matter as much as joy and companionship? Also, I’m sure it goes without saying, that if you’re devoting hours of your life praying and hearing the words of some savior that doesn’t exist, you have probably wasted a shitload of time you could have used for, well…anything real. (Say 4 hours a week for religion over seventy years = 14,000 hours or about three years of your waking life)

Your Strength of Character = The Strength of your Family and Friends

Your strength of character can mean many things. However, if we attempted to measure it, the yardstick might be how strong your relationship with your family and friends is and how important this is to maintain for you.

For many people nothing is more important that your family. If you are a stalwart lover, I think we should throw he, she, they into the family category. But not everyone has a family they made, and some lose the family they had. This doesn’t have to diminish the strength of their character because some things are measured every day even if you never speak to another evolutionarily advanced primate.

As stated above this could be the baseline for most individual’s perception of personal importance and in the end, I don’t think Darwin would have agreed with you.

What You Deserve = How Hard You Work for It

One might call this the motivation paradigm and is probably closer to something I believe. Whatever you feel is important you should work toward. If you want it, do the things it will take to get it. However, too often, in capitalistic America, this is watered down to ‘make that cash’ or ‘nail that hottie’. Okay, maybe this is important for some, or for some of the more immature parts of your life, but the number of other needs, wants, and desires which could be tossed onto this plate could blow the mind.

This could be something as simple as just having a girlfriend to designing the perfect city-state for Dungeons and Dragons. Others want to be in a tight band, live in the woods, or see the pyramids. Getting a car or your own place seems more capitalistic and mainstream, but when you don’t have such things so many of us need, they become critical.

The dark side of this is the sometimes held, almost mystic belief, that if we work hard enough, we get what we want and if others don’t have what they want, they must be lazy. I hope I don’t have to point out this is obviously bullshit. Life is chaos from what types of parents we were born to and the extent of our physical abilities. We all might be created equal under the law, but no two people are created equal. So, the concept that we all have an equal opportunity as long as we work hard enough is absurd.

This doesn’t cancel our hope of following a personal dream to success. If you have a passion, consider yourself lucky for that’s half the battle. So many people don’t have a clear goal or have more advanced goals blocked because they can’t accomplish more basic things such as finding a mate, a good job, or stable housing. I always admire people who set their sights on harder goals and then accomplish them, although you don’t always have to post them on Facebook. Just do it for yourself and not bragging rights.

The Love You Take is = To the Love You Make

This might be a potential way to measure one’s success. The more people who love and care about you = your level of success in life. Personally, I don’t think it is as simple as that. Is someone more successful because their parents had a bunch of kids and now you are loved by an extra dozen nieces and nephews? I think one should earn some of these accolades.

Of course, staying tight with your family and extended family is usually a sign of good character but it is also more of a given. More or less, you will be okay with your family as long as you don’t royally fuck up. More impressive are the relationships with others you create from scratch. I’m not saying being an ‘everyone friend’ is always good because spreading yourself too thin can water down how real these friendships are. However, in the end, you can usually measure how cool and all around decent a person is by the number of friends they have and the duration of those friendships.

Think about it like this. If you were considering dating a person, would you rather date a person who has tight friends who have stuck by them since they were teenagers or that person who ‘doesn’t really get along with others,’ and all their good friends ‘moved away?’ I rest my case.

The individual = What they Create

This can be considered the paradigm of the artist, but it goes so much further. If you make a new bookcase and your family puts books into it, you just improved the quality of everyone’s life. For many, creation is one of the strongest reasons to live. Once you get hooked on a certain kind of creation, you ache for being able to do it again. Other personal projects can come and go, or you might be building toward a similar goal but do it in a different way. The punk rock guitarist has now started a rockabilly band.

What you buy can outlast you but is also the same as hundreds if not millions of other households, but what you create is usually one of a kind. You are making something out of nothing or close to nothing. It is the closest to being a god we can come. A life full of creations is a well spent existence.

Relationship = How much you and your lover honestly care about one another

For some nothing is more important than their romantic relationship. Who is better off. the low-income guy who wife loves him and gives his sore muscles a massage or the rich man with a wife who hates him and is having an affair? I’d take the former. In the end if you can afford your favorite drink and a little soft cheese once in a while, who cares about money, it is happiness which is important.

Another way relationships can be a yardstick for success is how much your significant other loves and respects you. In most cases no one knows you better than your partner. If you have one who loves and cares for you, you are probably a good person. If you have a friend, but they can’t keep it together long with anyone they date, it probably is a strong indicator they do not have a centered life and emotional maturity.

Dating = The Thrill of the Ride

Just because I’m in the best relationship of my life (About 7,000 times better than my second best) doesn’t mean other people are there yet. There is nothing wrong with dating and enjoying the rush of trying to get to know a new person. Dating isn’t easy and trying to improve your skills can be, for some, a lifelong quest. For some singles, their skills with dating might be some of their most important attributes. If you are lonely and seek romance such skills become important to measure up to.

Entertainment/Socializing = The More Enjoyment You Experience the Better the Day Is

This can mean more than the Spinal Tap, “Have a good time all the time” motto. I’m going to dive into two quick threads here. First, what can really be a better measure of a life well lived than how much enjoyment a person has every day? It isn’t the richest man who wins it’s the one who has the most fun every day. Sure, there can be drawbacks. Maybe the guy having fun didn’t help his child get through college, but the child will probably want to visit them later because they know they’ll have a good time and are also more likely to be psychologically well balanced.

The second point is what type of person would you like to be? What type of people do you want to spend time with? A healthy person knows how to enjoy themselves and is not always walking through a world of doom and gloom. Hell, I’m the first one to admit this world is full of a lot of doomage and gloomage and problems should not be ignored, but I also only get one life and worrying about global warming while I’m playing cards with my buddies is not a big win.

Scene, You Hope What You Put into It = What You Get Out of It

Lastly, we have your scene, if you are lucky enough to be part of one, or even luckier to belong to more than one. Scenes are sometimes hard to describe, but it is a group of like-minded people with convergent goals who work together as a team to make a project, entertainment, a style of living, or a physical space come to life.

Here are a few Examples:

Type of Music
Art Collective
A Favorite Tavern
Drug Use
Playing Sports
Camping Group
Gamblers
Role Playing Gamers
Online Meeting Places
Schools
Polyamorous Groups

Sometimes they could just be fans of other people’s projects. These could be people who are really into certain bands, sports, or movies.

I’ll end with this. Terry Trash once told me, “The best way to have a strong scene is to spend money within and for the group instead just wasting it at mainstream businesses.” Okay maybe that isn’t a direct quote, but you get the idea.

No matter which of the items we’re talking about, whether it is spending a few bucks to see your friend’s band or buying artwork from a local, try to support the small person then we can all grow what we feel is important to us.

This was a long one. Thanks for taking the time to review these thoughts with me. Now go have some fun and don’t worry over whether you measure up to anyone but yourself.

You can check out some of my fiction here, where Detective Dak is placed in charge of the anti-clone task force. His main problem…. He’s dating one.

Thanks for listening

WildernessPunk- Drinking Games

I’ve made a few drinking games in my time, but for WildernessPunk, I’m going for the extra six-pack and designing three drinking games for the price of none. But hey, perhaps you can buy me a pint the next time you see me walking in the sun.

Why three? Well, it’s a simple answer, I don’t know where you’ll be drinking and as far as I’m concerned there are only three real drinking zones on this Earth.

This Planet’s Drinking Zones:

Inside a building
Outside in a populated area
Outside in the Wilderness

If you can think of a different zone let me know.

Also keep in mind different areas and regions have odd things you can quickly add to these lists, which I certainly think you should print up and bring with you wherever you go. For instance, when I was recently in Aspen there were a few electric blue shorts here and there and they go added to the list for our, Aspen Brewing Drinking Game, Genocide and I made up on the spot.

Some people think drinking games are only for bored knuckleheads trying to drink fast before they return to dull lives and abusive relationships, but no, such is not the case. Couples and groups of friends can have a lot of fun and more than a few laughs, while playing these games. Just make sure you bring enough cash and don’t plan to drive afterwards.

A final note:

Each list has 17 triggers for drinking but also the space for you to add three of your own. Many different places have more unique occurrences you may wish to add. Such things as skies in a tavern or moose out the window are very fun to add in some places but would seem silly in others. So, feel free to fill them in or add even more.

Also are there any huge things I forgot, please comment below so I can add them to my own games.

Thanks

Alex Bone

Indoor Drinking Game

Someone brings in an animal. Two drinks if they are not allowed.
Something breaks or spills
A person comes in, looks around, and leaves
Someone you know arrives
An individual is hitting on another, two drinks if it fails
You get a free drink
Someone tells you how they have figured it all out
Someone brings a bike inside the building
Anyone talking or texting on a cell phone while their date watches
Two drinks if both are on their cell phone
Any super drunk move witnessed
Lover’s spat
Anyone sneezes, pukes, or falls
Public Display of Affection
You make an employee laugh
Someone tries to order a domestic swag lager at a brewery
Ball comes off a pool table, dart hits the floor, etc

Urban Outside Drinking Game (Patio)

Any vehicle tire hits a curb
You get to pet a dog (Everyone Drinks)
Anyone talking on a blue tooth
People walk by in matching clothing
Anyone dressed for work
When you can feel the bass of a car driving by
Anyone asks you for money
Someone you know walks by
Anyone talks about river rafting, mountain biking, or climbing
White pants
Someone gets another’s cell number
Someone takes a selfie or a picture of their food
The first time you see any species of animal
Anyone says, “I love you man. (bro)”
Anyone helps another person
Any weather change
You talk to a child who was not with your group

Wilderness Drinking Game

Get stung
Someone comes back on a wood run
Dog fight
New vehicle arrives
The first time someone plays frisbee golf, horseshoes, or cornhole
Anything breaks
Anyone falls or knocks something over
Food is burnt or dropped into the fire
See another human go by
A camper is threatened by an animal
Sunburned
Lose something (Group Drink)
Someone is doing yoga, knitting, artwork, photography, or filming a video
A person gets wet
Someone runs out of beer, everyone else drinks
You see human blood
Each time a person goes to bed

You can check out some of my fiction here, where Detective Dak is placed in charge of the anti-clone task force. His main problem…. He’s dating one.

WildernessPunk- Communication Breakdown

It’s always the same. You try to organize a project, gathering, or event and sometimes it’s like pulling teeth to get certain people to just reply to a simple text. Should I be buying four corn on the cobs or a dozen? Damn it, how much ice am I going to need…

The lack of efficient communication during our current times remains mystifying. Three hundred years ago, you would have to write a letter and sometimes wait months for a reply. Morse code sped things up and you could have the potential to get a reply within a day or so if you had the funds. About a century ago phones began to appear on the walls of the wealthy but a few decades later most families had one in their kitchen.

It was the time of the potential for instant communication, even with people who lived hundreds of miles away. Then things got easier. Soon we had phones in our pockets. Not long after that, phones become computers, cameras, video games, and bankers. Add to this social sites and I can connect with most of my friends in multiple ways.

However, as the ease evolved, it often seems like our motivation declined. Where once I would have to hear my friend’s voice if I wanted to let him know I’d be visiting his town soon, now I could call him, text him, or message him on Facebook. But maybe I can just let him know he’s in my thoughts by clicking like on that almost funny meme he posted.

This gets to the strange part. If I left a message on a friend’s machine 30 years ago, I could see how it might take him a while to find the time to call me back, because, if nothing else, it would probably be a fifteen-minute commitment. This is why it remains bizarre when I can’t get a fifteen second text from someone confirming they’re in on some event. I know I’m not the only one experiencing this because I’m part of some of my friend’s group texts too.

Now I’m not throwing people under the bus. I don’t approve of being linked to your cell and checking it every two minutes. Yuck. I often take hours to text people back. It just seems weird when people go black and just ghost a buddy.

So let me ask you this, is it just me, or do you also experience a decline in human interaction in a ratio to how easy communication is?

Allow me to the review the timeline:

Letters, months long wait.
Morse code, Day long wait
Phone, instant communication between homes
Cell, instant communication from anywhere
Texts/Messaging, the ability to communicate sound bites at quick speeds
The ability to communicate in multiple ways but lacking the motivation for that fifteen second commitment

This also brings up another interesting point/observation. What happens when some friends get right back to you with the data you need but others don’t? At least for me this creates a new type of tier system within the individuals I know. When some people throw down right away and others don’t reply, the latter in some ways become ghosts or half people.

I don’t want to sound like a dick or assume it’s cell phones or the highway, but when you can reply but you don’t where am I supposed to go from here? Products are more expensive than ever and knowing whether I need two pizzas or three could mean the difference of 40 bucks these days and my kids won’t eat cold pizza because they are aliens.

Again, I don’t want to call individuals ghosts or say they are half people, but if two people have cells and one takes a big fifteen seconds to text me back and another doesn’t, they seem less real to me. This doesn’t even reflect how it could be considered an insult that I’m not worth the effort of giving me the thumbs up sign if I ask you if you’re making the BBQ.

I recently passive aggressively let someone slack out of a three-year-old RPG I’m running. He never replied to texts. I had to text his wife to remind him to come and it just became too much effort. I just texted him, got no reply, no show and I gave up. The funny thing was, he never even brought it up when I saw him. Two of his best friends are still in the game with me about once a month and he is oblivious.

My intention isn’t to dish on people, set up some standard of behavior, or say I’m better than the next guy. My main goal is to maximize my chaos by using law. I know this sounds odd but hear me out.

When we were younger, maybe single, most of us were without children etc. Back in those days (or if you are in them now) being chaotic is easier and you could just wing it. If you missed a get-together there would probably be another next week.

As we grow older, we have less chances to throw down. People spread further apart and many of us up our game. For example, at 25 a few sixers of lager and two bags of potato chips was a good Friday night with my pals. At 55 if I’m having the same guys over, it’ll be more like BBQ, iced down craft beers, and some soft cheese. So obviously it is more important to know if people are coming if each person is going to use over 15$ in supplies.

If I’m hosting something and shelling out over a hundred bucks for it, I need to know who’s coming and not at the last minute either. I also know if things fall through, I won’t be doing it again for another couple of months. So yeah, I’m going to use law to organize the Hell out of it. If I just leave it to chance and hope is flows correctly, I’m going to be a pissed off guy hanging with one friend and having so many leftovers I might have to toss out some food. So yeah, I may be a priest of chaos, but if I want everyone there so my chaos can rock, I’m going to come in strong to see it through…kinda, gasp, like an adult.

So hey, if you can join in the fun and want to make sure you are included, take those 10 seconds to communicate in the easiest manner ever invented because we don’t have telepathy yet, but I’m sure it’ll be placed in our brains soon by our AI overlords. Until then… ride the apocalypse my friends.

If you liked this, then I’m sure your want to check out the deals available with Cactus Phone!

WildernessPunk- In the Lap

So let me ask you this, is it just me, or do you also experience a decline in human interaction in a ratio to how easy communication is?

Allow me to the review the timeline:

Letters, months long wait.
Morse code, Day long wait
Phone, instant communication between homes
Cell, instant communication from anywhere
Texts/Messaging, the ability to communicate sound bites at quick speeds
The ability to communicate in multiple ways but lacking the motivation for that fifteen second commitment

If you liked this, then I’m sure your want to check out the deals available with Cactus Phone!

WildernessPunk- In the Lap

As I stand with my little family at the side of the Roaring Fork River in Aspen Colorado, I can’t help but be overwhelmed by the power of the beauty which flows over the landscapes surrounding me. I feel calm and at peace. Joy fills my heart while I remain happy and proud, I can help my children experience such things and bring a smile onto my wife’s pretty face.

Yet, as is my gift, or perhaps curse, other realities tug at the edge of my consciousness. Do I deserve such privileges, and if I somehow do, what have I done to make this so? I’m not sure about you but I don’t think what each of us deserve in life is as simple as a math calculation based on your net income/wealth.

In the past I have been of a mind that no one ‘deserves’ anything. Life is random chaos and humans are animals which aren’t entitled to anything other than air, and if you’re being generous, water and food. However, over the years some of my attitude on this topic may have changed, but I certainly don’t believe in some mystic karma which brings justice to the world. We need to look no further than our last president, the evil criminal who flourished, while thousands of caring families starved to death every hour.

Yet to get back to the subject at hand, let’s drill down to what each of us might deserve in this life and how we could ever measure how someone might be entitled to more than another. As mentioned above, for many, if you can afford it, you deserve to have it, but does this really make sense. What if you can do something only by accident of birth? “Well, my mother bought this house, so now I get to live in this house I had no hand in earning or purchasing.” Do I have more of a right to live in such a nice place, while a person with the same date of birth born into a poor family would never be allowed such an opportunity?

Currently, I don’t even have a real job, but I’m experiencing this ultra beautiful place which some other guy who works 80 hours a week wouldn’t be able to afford. How is this fair? Why would I deserve this more than him?

I suppose someone might claim you get out of life what you put into it. This, of course, helps. Motivation, kindness, understanding, and hard work usually will elevate your quality of life, but when we start with a loaded dice fueled by chaos, I think only a fool would claim we’re all receiving what we deserve or have even worked for.

This doesn’t consider what some people would call luxury, others might consider boring. For some individuals staying in Aspen during the summer might be the height of opulence, while others might prefer camping at the base of a mountain north of Gunnison. The first might think sleeping in a tent on the dirt is low class, while the latter might feel like a king having this billion-dollar view all to themselves.

But I’m getting tangented again.

How should I feel bringing my children here? I’m happy they are getting to experience this beauty and some of this culture. Expanding their minds and giving them variety is almost always a great thing. Can I enjoy it too or does the back of my mind always nag at me that maybe I don’t really deserve this. Or why do I have it when others who struggle more than me don’t.

But how do you measure struggle? Has the workaholic struggled more than I when I didn’t see my kids for 18 months while I escaped the horror of a bad marriage? Should I not be able to enjoy what I have because others won’t? Should I spend months organizing some half-assed communist retreat, where I allow underprivileged kids to come up here instead of my family?

Obviously, I have been asking more questions than I’m providing answers for, and I haven’t even touched on such things as environmental concerns or the impact of travel. But before I wrap this up, let’s try to discover a few answers, or perhaps some balance.

How much luxury does one deserve?

Earning privileges through economic gain has too many variables to be considered a fair unit of measurement in my eyes, so I will be looking deeper than job to pleasure ratios here and try to find measurements which can be considered more universal.

Strong indicators you deserve what you have:

You are enjoying something you built yourself
You are enjoying the kindness of people you have been good to
You have harvested something you have grown or raised yourself
You are basking in the companionship of animals you have cared for
You have made the effort to travel far to reach your destination
You have sacrificed other luxuries to reach your goal
You will make sacrifices after you obtain your goal
You can share your experience/trip/luxury with others and enrich their lives by doing so
You have created something out of nothing which improves people’s lives

These are just a few items which are strong indicators we’re being paid for our efforts in a just manner. What do you think? Are there items we could add to this list? Do you think we deserve whatever we can purchase? Do you believe in Capitalism Karma? Please consider sharing what you might think on the subject for I would be very interested in getting other people’s take on this.

Thanks for your time and now I think I deserve a break and will breathe in the fresh air of the Rockies before I crack open a crafted ale.

Grab some of my ‘Does Dak dream of electric cars’ fiction here