WildernessPunk

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- Heroes

Here I sit, writing in Whole Foods. By choice, no, but this is the last of my children’s tutorial sessions this summer which happen to take place near a Whole Foods, so I’ll soak it in one last time as their summer draws to an end. I won’t be here again until next June. My kids will be one grade higher, and I’ll be one year closer to the fire. Such thoughts drag me toward more universal truths and icons which will outlast us all. Such as the flashy, victorious, confused and tormented but always hopeful… hero.

When you think of a hero what comes to mind? Do you think of a real person like some founding father or William Wallace or does your mind drift toward mythical personalities like Odysseus, Bilbo, or Spiderman? What about heroes living in our current moment? Is a nurse working in the ER in a third world country a hero to you or a mother who saves her child from a flood? I’m sure some people consider dedicated politicians, police officers, or soldiers returning from conflict zones real heroes.

These last three characters are less likely to do it for me, which brings up the issue of how one person’s hero could be another’s villain, or at least an individual not deserving hero status. For example, I’m sure Thomas Jefferson is a hero to many. He helped found this country and worked on the development of the constitution. Yet to others he would be considered backwards and villainous because he enslaved other humans.

The first step in defining a hero might have to begin with what you consider a hero to be. No one thinks heroes must be perfect. Even in the stories of Jesus, he murders another child in the book of Enoch. So, what does a hero have to be/have?

Here are some heroic archetypes:

Clever
Intelligent
Helps Others
Strong
Agile
Seeks Innovative Solutions
Fights for the Downtrodden
Travels
Combats Evil
Fights Malign Monsters
Gains wisdom and Strength Through Challenges
The Apprentice Becomes the Master
Becomes Famous
Goes up Numerous Levels
Helps Heal the Sick
Fights Lost Causes
Fulfills a Destiny

This list is just off the cuff, I’m not trying to go all Joesph Campbell on you. Once you figure out what characteristics a hero should have, the next step would be to decide what a hero needs to have in your eyes. Once you figure it out, then you could see what figures meet your expectations and then this would be a hero for you.

Then the next step would be decide what works best for you; real living examples, mythological archetypes/fictional heroes, or perhaps a bit of both.

I’ll pick one of each who does it for me.

William Wallace:

He was a real person defending his land from oppressive tyranny. William Wallace went into a keep which was part of his culture’s territory with two friends. They were just trying to take care of normal business but when they returned to his horses William found an Englishman, who was an enemy of his, cutting the tail of his horse as an insult. The Englishman called for Wallace’s death but met his own instead, while William and his two friends had to flee.

Finding their lord dead, 20 English soldiers chased after the three Scotsmen. During the chase William Wallace’s horse broke a leg and he was thrown from his steed. Drawing his Claymore, he stood to go down fighting, but soon it was the English who rushed at him which went down.

His two friends turned and thought, hell, we must help our brother and rushed back to assist their friend. Together William’s Claymore and his two allies won the day. After gutting the soldiers, they returned and claimed the keep for their own.

Score one for the good guys.

Sometimes fantasy stories hit strong because they dive deeper into the source of human needs and the archetypes of our existence can be represented symbolically. Fantasy stories, like the fairy tales of our ancestors, hit the deeper buried motivations of our species. They are closer to the human archetypes and touch on the core meaning of existence which flows through all humanity. In my opinion the universal archetypes are the closest humanity ever comes to interacting with gods or a uniting aspect of the multiverse.

Odysseus:

Case in point the story of Odysseus. Unlike other older myths such as Beowulf, Odysseus doesn’t always win just by being the strongest or able to fight well. Five avoided battles are equal to one win, when it comes to keeping yourself and your allies alive.

Odysseus understood the best way to survive a battle is not to have one. There are always other ways to win and drawing one’s sword should be the last option. Odysseus is the evolved man, emerging from a primitive, more beastlike state, into a human whose problems can be solved with our minds, and we can move past the battle of fang and claw.

Personal Hero

When it comes to picking the kind of hero you admire, most often we tend to pick a figure with talents we wish we had. Either they have obtained attributes we’re lacking or wish we possessed to a higher degree.

Which figure nails this for you? If you could create your perfect hero, what would it look like?

If I might digress a moment, this is one of the reasons playing a game like Dungeons and Dragons can become so interesting. Instead of being locked into one worldview, this game lets you explore your ethics and morals from multiple points of view. Hell, you can even play the evil guy. I’m not sure what else in life gives you such an opportunity other than writing.

Have you ever explored your own hero? What heroic things have you done for yourself and others. Does something stand out the second you read this. For me it could be me charging a mountain lion, who was trying to hunt down my baby son, with only a sword in my hand.

It ran away.

What would the perfect hero be? I think it must be close to what our ideal vision of ourselves would be. So obviously it would be different for each of us. Some might see the hero as a rich character while this would only be mildly important for others. Strong, clever, quick? Yes please. Charismatic… a must.

Would a female hero be different? I would think so. Perhaps more nurturing and a need to protect others could become more important. Also, they should be able to do that scorpion kick thing.

Feel free to tell me your version of your own blend of hero. I’ll be here sharpening my dice.

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

WildernessPunk- Friends

Despite our friendships being some of the most enjoyable parts of our lives, what a friend is might be hard to define. How do you know you have a great friend? When does someone who was once a tight buddy get demoted into the acquaintance level? Can someone be a friend with someone who doesn’t return the favor?

If I was going to try to define what being a friend means, it would go something like this:

A person you like spending time with, which you share some similar interests with, and you also have each other’s backs during both the high and low points in life.

How about acquaintance?

A person who you share at least one interest and usually see while partaking in that interest. Also, a person you are on good terms with but do not run into often. Lastly, they could be a former close friend who one no longer spends much or any time with.

Friendship and Time

I have held a personal theory about friendship for a few decades now. My theory is to stay a tight friend with someone you need to see them at least once every two years. This would be weirder with someone living in the same town as you, but can still apply, but my theory really addressed when a great friend of yours moves to a different town, which happens so frequently in our lives.

I think if you don’t see someone you used to be friends with for over two years, it starts to get awkward because you are forced to spend so much time catching up and rediscovering the people you have both grown into. You also might not realize the person they have become. Maybe you have drifted apart culturally. I find two years works well, you have some new, funny stories to share, perhaps some drama, but then, with luck you can fall back into your older friendship without much issue. Have you ever hung out with an old friend who you haven’t seen for five years or ten? I’m sure I’m not the only one who can find this becoming strained.

I have a buddy who moved to Vegas. Sure, it is five hundred miles away, but I’ve made sure to visit him as much as I can and over the past twenty-three years, I’ve probably seen him in Nevada a dozen times, and he’s probably visited me almost as much. Yeah, we live in different states, but we keep in touch and know enough about each other’s lives when we meet, we can just pick up where we left off. Hell, there are people who are supposed to be my friends in the same town, I see less than him.

Friendship Length

One of the stranger things about friendship for me is understanding how the length of the original tight friendship can affect its durability. How many times in life, especially when we are younger, do we end up having fast and fun friendships where we grow close to an individual and they become an important part of our lives. We will often look back with fond memories in regard to these people, but then when we remember how long we really spent with them it seems surprising.

I have several friends I met as soon as I moved out of my parent’s house and whom I have been friends with for decades. We always help each other out and spend as much time together as possible. It is obvious they are true buddies. But how about those intense eighteen-month friends I had in my twenties? They seemed super important then, and I was tight with these people, but how good of a friendship do I really have with someone I only hung out with a year or so, twenty-five years ago?

This is the hard part. Sure, I was tight for a year, but now after two decades have passed, how good of friends are we? Are we still tight or was this person just a fun blip on my radar? Of course, Facebook and such things can change all this to some degree but I’ll get into that later.

Still, isn’t it strange to think of someone who meant so much to you but hasn’t been a part of your life for a long time. Are you still friends? I would think so. How close? I guess that would be up to both of you, but I think it is easy to understand my Two-Year rule when we dig down into subjects like this.

Facebook Friendship

I hate to say it, but discussion of friendship can’t happen these days without including Facebook. However, it often brings up more questions than answers. What happens with the Two-Year rule, I reviewed above? Do I need to see my more removed friends every two years when I know what their kids look like, and how they went to Mexico for their vacation? Does Facebook bridge the gap in our current world when at any given time 80% of our once tight friends are no longer in our direct lives?

I also noticed a strange phenomenon with Facebook. Before Facebook started, I used to think about some of my older friends. Maybe people I hadn’t seen or hung out with at all for a decade or two. What would I say to these people if we could speak again?

Then it suddenly happened. I could talk to the girl I dated my sophomore year in College. Or contact that weird guy I used to buy shrumes from. I’m not sure about the people reading this, but I mostly found these interactions unfulfilling. Either the conversation was awkward and underwhelming, or I felt a tinge of guilt, here is this person I always wanted to sit down and have a three-hour conversation with, but now I barely said hi when we were ‘friended.’

Another downside to Facebook, at least for me, is it seems to cheapen my probably unrealistic and romanticized memories. Sometimes you just want to remember things like how the girl you first kissed looked when you were both teenagers. At the risk of pissing someone off, I’m not as into seeing her as some overweight fifty something, with her bald husband and three kids, one of which is older than we were when we kissed.

Maybe some memories were meant to stay idealized and, yes, a bit fake, but those young years of our lives were intense. Often looking back on those wild times helps you when you are listening to cartoons while making dinner for your kids, or just staying home on a Saturday night. Maybe I don’t want to know that crazy guy I took acid with on Mount Lemmon is now celebrating his ninth year of sobriety. I really don’t want to know what that girl I was crushing on when I was twenty-five looks like now.

My personal, and incriminating, gripes aside is Facebook a positive or negative to friendship.

Positives:

You can get in touch with forgotten friends
Reunions and such happen with greater ease
If your kid deletes all the numbers in your cell, you can still get them back
It does add an aspect of life sharing which helps people stay in touch

Negatives:

It cheapens memories
You are forced to watch exciting people slowly become ever more boring
Fun memories become watered down by mundania
People change and you might be subjected to the current nonsense of someone you used to respect

For most people, after family, friends are your next important treasure. Many might put friends first. Personally, last weekend, I finished a huge chapter in a 24-year-old Dungeons and Dragons campaign with friends I have known for 38 years. My friends helped me beyond all belief when I was down and started WildernessPunk. Frankly, without the assistance of Jeremy, Zano, Geff, Dave, Greg, Chris, and Tony I don’t know where I would be. And golly those are some white boy names, but what the hell, we deal with the cards we are dealt.

One last word of warning. If there was ever a red flag in a romantic, or any other type of relationship, it would be a lack of friends. Whether it is a would-be platonic buddy or a potential mate, if they don’t have a gaggle of friends, don’t just run, run fast, and make sure you use a fake name.

This is

Alex

Bone

Signing Out

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- The Last Fable

What’s the number one thing which many people find supremely important, while others don’t even believe it exists? I’m not talking about global warming deniers, flat earthers, or evil morons talking about how they want to promote racism, oops, I mean yapping about critical race theory. These are all valid points of contention, but I’m talking about the number one thing which bell curves from controlling lives, human rights, and in some cases whole countries, but on the other side of the spectrum the majority of humans think it’s just a silly fable.

Of course, I’m discussing religion.

Step back from however you feel about such things for a moment. Is there anything else you can think of which is so important to so many but other people think is a myth? If you are religious and reading this (weird) you aren’t off the hook, because even if you truly believe in your version of god and creations there are billions of people who YOU think are doing it wrong and praying into the emptiness. As Christopher Hitchens said, everyone is at least 99% atheist, because they are rejecting hundreds of other faiths, real atheists just take it one step further.

As a lifelong atheist I can kinda groc the concept that maybe something created some parts of existence. It isn’t impossible, but certainly the popular religions on this planet have nothing to do with it. What I really can’t wrap my head around is things like a person thinking Satan exists or that they might be going to Hell or Heaven. Such ideas are fine for Dungeons and Dragons, but how an adult could really believe these things are real remains difficult for me understand.

It must be so strange to believe supernatural and magical things are happening to the billions of people roaming this globe. I can understand why religion evolved. Like all myths it was used to explain the unknown and perhaps more importantly, was designed to control and often grift people.

In antiquity when humans discovered the uses of grain (beer) and put their hunter and gather modality behind them and began to live in larger settlements, crime became a problem. This is because for the first time in human existence, some people had a lot more than others. They made laws, but laws don’t work as well if you can break them without getting caught. So the elites needed something else. Some way people could get in trouble for stealing even if no one was watching.

The myriads of religions fit this bill with style. If you steal from me and get caught you could lose a hand, but if you don’t get caught you could still lose because now you will burn in Hell, fade into nothingness in the glooms of Hades, or be tortured in Gehenna. And boom, bang, bingo, the masses are double controlled and your brother with a big mouth can fleece the population while convincing everyone they are the special chosen people. In fact, hey, since we are all so important let’s steal stuff from those other guys, cause, you know, they aren’t the special people who follow the same guy in the sky as we do.

Sort of a ‘we’re special and you suck,’ paradigm. And we are still dealing with this mentality and yeah, it’s ruined the world more than anything else.

Of course, the history of most religions includes genocide, rape, slavery, subjugation, imprisonment, torture, execution, and grifting the poor of their money. In the past, as well as today, we can find multiple countries run by religion. These countries use their religion with an iron fist and citizens who proclaim their atheism are imprisoned or sometimes killed. Most modern religions punch down on women. In some circumstances doing something as basic as dressing as you wish, or driving is forbidden.

Also included in most religions is the hatred of the outsider. The Abrahamic religions all include passages where the unbeliever must be destroyed. In the Bible and the Torah, genocide, rape, and slavery are encouraged. Fear of different people is one of our species’ most primitive emotions. It doesn’t speak highly of these faiths when they seek to make use of such primordial impulses.

What really amazes me is when these people, who worship a god which by any definition is evil, somehow claim to be the vanguard of morality. If you don’t follow their god of murder, rape, and slavery, somehow, you are the one who is evil and has strayed from the light. If, when playing Dungeons and Dragons, I came across a xenophobic god who preached the destruction of everything which was different, but had followers who claimed to be peaceful, I would tip my hat to the Game Master for providing a complex set of villains and then go about taking them out.

This brings up my final point. I have heard religious people say, “What if you are wrong? What if you find out (my) god is real?” Well, I can answer that. If it was the Abrahamic god, somehow, I would call it the monster it is and probably try to fight against it if I could. Hell’s Bells, where did I leave my Hammer of Thunderbolts?

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

WildernessPunk- Organized Chaos

Traveling always reminds me of writing and WildernessPunk, or is it telling me I should be writing some WildernessPunk? I was a bit pleased with my WP jumpstart last summer and my writing jumpstart in general. As I have mentioned before, while the rest of the world worked on unfinished projects and novels during Covid, I did the opposite and almost quit writing during the pandemic. Yep, I’ve always been one to buck the crowds, or perhaps a backwards man.

This pause has passed for me, however, for as I experienced the closest thing to writer’s block I’ve ever felt while trying to finish the last book of my 10 book Eternal Aftermath Series, I have now neared the completion. This book has been on hiatus for over two years. I shouldn’t give myself to much credit-I’m not done yet, but finishing a project I started in 2010 won’t hurt me.

Currently, however, I find myself waking up early in an attempt to get words on screen before my family follows suit here in our little hotel room in Silver City New Mexico. I’m not on some epic, change your life, trip. Nope, just more to throw some chaos and variety into my boy’s Fall Break.

Yet what is chaos really, and is it a positive thing? Obviously, chaos is too chaotic to be good all the time. Ha ha. Entropy is more like a force of nature which can give you the best day of your life or leave you wracked and ruined. The question is, can we control chaos? Perhaps control is the wrong word, it might be better to ask, can we use chaos as a positive tool to aid us, and increase our life’s enjoyment levels and productivity?

I often see it work, or should I say not work, the other way. We all wish to have a good time, but often people in my generation try to stay loose and keep things more open ended, like preparing too much for an event which is selling out. Yeah, this would be fine if we were all immortal, lived 2000 years, or didn’t have one of our friends move to another state every six months. In this world, I, at least, prefer to maximize my chaos with a technique one could call Organized Chaos. Yep, I know I might have pissed off a few readers with that one but hear me out.

Say you have an event coming up. I don’t care if it is asking people over to BBQ, trying to get your buddies to meet you at a show, or planning a kid’s birthday party, I feel the event itself injects chaos into the world. Why? Because if you’re aren’t doing something different, then your chaos level is low. What’s more chaotic; staying at home on a Saturday doing some of the same things you did last Saturday. or heading out and doing anything else or creating some difference in other people’s lives by having them get out of their ‘same ol’ by heading to your place?

Yeah, yeah Captain Obvious, so what?

This is where Organized Chaos comes in. So, if we can agree, going or doing something different is more chaotic than doing the same ol, and agree we want to maximize the fun of anything we plan to do, Organized Chaos is the best way to get this done. No, I don’t want to go with the flow and hope for the best. Sure, I enjoy chaos, but being surprised by how badly things go is not something I’m into.

Again, we only have so many days on this planet, if I’m planning something, I need for it to go as well as possible. I want to come in strong and give it my best shot. I’m being chaotic by creating this event out of nothing, but if I’m going to the trouble to do so, I want to do it right. Being half assed isn’t the same as chaotic.

Allow me to explain. Say I want to invite people over for a feast. The last two Saturdays I just hung out and did chores, so inviting people over is much more chaotic than what I could do. I don’t mean to get all mathy, but let’s just say an average weekend has a chaos value of 100 (Come on we’re always doing something weird (I hope)) Now let’s say for each person who comes over to my feast the chaos value is increased by 50 and I invite 10 people.

100 + (10 x 50) = 600

So, in general, I have a chance to increase my Daily Positive Chaos sixfold.

Daily Positive Chaos: The beneficial aspect of increasing the variety one experiences which heightens the productivity and joy for an individual during a 24-hour cycle.

Now let’s imagine that instead of being somewhat Lawful and planning this well (yes I said it) I just assume the chaotic threads of the universe will just flow my way and only 4 of the people I invite actually show up.

100 + (4 x 50) = 300

So, although my slacker attitude about getting things done could be labeled chaotic, for I was leaving the attendance to fate, the results are not. In fact, I have lowered my Positive Daily Chaos by 50%.

Am I going to have a better camping trip just rushing through a store to buy hotdogs and chips, or will we all lounge in luxury if I purchase and prepare some special dishes? If I’m visiting someone who’s going to be working during the day, will it help to coordinate with them what activities are being planned where they live so they can share the best ones with you? Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons with a DM who was just trying to wing it?

My point is, (yep, I have one) good times can become a strange dichotomy of sorts. One must act lawfully, plan, and plot in order to increase the success of your chaotic endeavor. Stronger Chaos out of Law.

There you have it. Enjoy your next picnic.

You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this.