WildernessPunk

Can you go Back? WildernessPunk

They say, “You can’t go back.” Which is of course false, because you can go back, it just might not feel the same way. Yet, what makes it different? I often look back at even recent times in my life and marvel over how much has changed in just a couple of years, but things can become dissimilar for us in just a few months as well.

Preroof and tarp

Sometimes situations change for the worse, but as darker fluctuations occur, at times they can also force us out of stagnation. Although many of us like to feel cozy and warm in a predicable life, one also runs the risk of trading the unknown for the known and lack of variety and adventure can often be the price you pay.

Boney Utah

As the sun begins to set on this mystic Baccanaught, I look back at where I was when I started WildernessPunk 18 months ago. I lived much of my time in camp 1 between Flagstaff and Walnut Canyon. I spent the days and nights alone with only the minimal equipment I could transport to the forest by bike. No fires, simple foods, mostly reading and writing until the battery on my loaned laptop died.

Now, not too long after, I’m living in a home with heat and water, dating a lovely goddess of a woman, seeing friends every week, and most importantly getting to have my boys stay with me.

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Yes, much can change quickly, but this only made it more exciting when I had a chance to return to Camp 1 recently. It felt fitting I hiked up into the forest alone. Within are pictures of Camp 1 taken in 2018, 15 months after the last night I slept there.

Trail

In theory, I had returned to clean up and perhaps salvage anything worth grabbing, but as I followed the old trail, which hid my homeless refuge, other more complex thoughts moved through my mind.

in the distance 2018

I felt grateful. Where so much had turned against me, now so many things have fallen into place. Yet as the readers of WildernessPunk might appreciate, with this turning of the tide, something was also lost.

Camp 1 view

One feels a pride persevering through obstacles and living low to the ground with limited resources. Nature is the great equalizer. Rich or poor, members of every race and belief are all treated the same. Only your ability to prepare and work to improve your state changes things in the real world.

Was this the Real World or is my normal house more real? Hard to say. I felt alive in a different fashion then. Am I more of a winner now or less? I’d get different answers from each person I could ask. Yet, the bottom line for many of us becomes our children, family, lover, and friends. Are you going to live for yourself and ideals, or jump into the mainstream so your can uphold different goals and ideals?

Perhaps one can do both. Wish me luck.

AZSunset

You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this, Hell, my hero is a cop, go figure.

1 in 3, WildernessPunk

“Whether a man is a criminal or a public servant is purely a matter of perspective”

Tom Robbins, 1990

Hello dear readers of the glowing light, I’m not talking about me, I mean your magic rectangle. I’m just here to address the vampire in the room. A year has passed since Trump has occupied the White House. Some people are still backing him, while others are inclined to think he’s the worse disaster to hit the USA since the Vietnam War.

Put your opinions aside for a moment and let’s look at the positives Trump has done for us. Don’t get too excited Conservatives (Like there are any reading this…) because I not talking about policies or steering the country, as much as what he has helped us understand about ourselves from an anthropological or perhaps philosophical perspective.

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Starting with the simple observations, no need to make this complicated, we can all agree Trump has had a wild year. Where most Presidents strive for dignity and leadership, every 48 hours Trump gets away with more questionable behavior than Nixon resigned for. The Presidency is a reality television show and if there is no scandal for a few days, Trump with think one up.

He’s done much to alienate himself from women, foreign countries, GBLTQ folks, law enforcement, immigrants, Muslims, and journalists to name a few. Yet out of these various stunts and actions, the common thread moving through his Presidency is his racism. I’m not going to argue about his racism here or give details. Remember I’m keeping this simple. He’s a racist, moving forward. It you disagree, you are the 1 in 3 and I’ll get to you shortly.

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So, despite him being a racist and all the other violations of human rights and just common decency he’s trampled his approval rating hovers around 33% or 1 in 3. Okay this will be important…1 in 3. The fact is, after doing almost everything he could do to turn caring people off, we know 33% of U.S. adults still support him, and this is where Trump has done us a favor.

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If you still like Trump, there are only 3 things you can be:

Ignorant
An Asshole
All of the above

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Am I being too harsh? Nope. If you support a racist, you are either raised so poorly and became isolated from experience and education to a point where you have to be just plain stupid enough to belief this is acceptable behavior or you’re a selfish hate driven scumbag. Or if you think things like your tax returns are more important than human rights you are an asshole. See I told you I’d keep this simple.

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And here’s where I thank Trump for his favor. He has finally allowed us to see the true percentage of stupid people and/or assholes in the USA. Good to know. So, if I walk out my door, I need to keep in mind 1 in 3 people in my path are stupid or assholes and most likely both.

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Obviously, this ratio is greatly dependent on the situation. If I’m seeing TWIGS and some other local bands play at Club Congress, the ratio might be more like 1 in 20. However, if I went to some Church of the Latter-Day Saints morning mass, I’d find things closer to 19 in 20. Also places like Bisbee and Seattle would have a very different ratio than say Jacksonville.

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Overall though 1 in 3. I’ve thought about what the true numbers of stupid asshole versus the rest of us might be throughout my entire life. In high school it would have been higher. In my free floater early college years much lower, but hey now we know. I mean, we really know. No ifs, waits, or bullshit.

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When you are combing your hair and getting ready to head out on a Saturday night, as you walk into a job interview, or are meeting your daughter’s new boyfriend… keep in mind you have a 1 in 3 chance to run face to face with someone who cares more about themselves than human decency.

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So watch your back out there. And again, thanks Trump, we couldn’t have figured it out without you.

Dionysus Slick

You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this, Hell, my hero is a cop, go figure.

Bone Desert

Junk in the Trunk, WildernessPunk

What, am I talking about health? Trying to be trendy? I know North Americans hear so much discussion over eating habits and physical health, such things are the last issues we want to read about, or are they? Maybe we’re in a unique space in human history, where we have the means to fix and prolong our bodies, but have hordes of food and vices available to destroy it as well. Add to this our ability, for many, to earn enough to survive without using much our bodies metabolism to do so.

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I’m not going to burrow this down to how many cabs you should be shoving into your mouth, I’m looking at a more complex issue, perhaps the source of so much of our health and nutrition debates.

Why am I diving into this topic? It’s because it has some relevance in regards to my current state. If you’ll indulge me to allow myself to be an example to help explore the issue of human technology versus health, we can get started. My main point is… As technological advancements are extending life, technology has become a double-edged sword which also makes many of us some of the unhealthiest humans this world has ever seen.

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Okay, back to me. You knew it was coming. As some of you may remember, I went from living on the cusp between, nature, traveling, and urban sofa squatting for over a year, before becoming more settled into this city clinging to the Sonoran Desert. After the move, I was thin, in great shape, at least for me, and riding my mountain bike a few dozen miles a day through raging heat.

Then I got my place.

I kept up the bike riding and was making much of my cash from physical labor. Still there is a big difference riding your bike ten miles into town for groceries, and just crossing the street. Most of my more intensive jobs aren’t much harder than camping three days in a row, or putting in 14 hours days prepping for my move.

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Is this how hard I have to work to keep this beer belly at bay? Because despite rounding out the year with only using the bike as transport, getting physical, and exercising every day, I’m seeing it grow.

And now I have a car.

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And… after not having wheels for so long, it sure feeling tempting to drive it around, just because I can.

Jello Biafra said, “Give me convenience or give me death,” Perhaps now, it could be stated, “Give me so much convenience it will lead me to an early death.”

Let’s draw this conversation back to one of the updated purposes of WildernessPunk, which is to explore possibilities, leading people toward a more nature based life, even when living inside an urban environment.

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As a culture, we have rejected the natural and the physical in return not only for convince, but also for time. I could ride my bike to the store, but it will save me time if I drive, I could wash my clothes in the sink, but it will be so much faster if I toss them into a washing machine. I could work on finishing the end table I was building, but I just added three more channels to my cable plan and I wanted to check out…

In each of the situations above, we have traded money, natural resources, and increased our carbon footprint, while forsaking activities which would help us burn off some calories.

Dionysus On High

Of course, other things contribute to health issues and being overweight. Diets are huge. I’m sure if I quit drinking ale and caffeine, I’d be trimmer, but I don’t want to piss Dionysus off. I might touch on such things in the future, but not today. Instead I stand here, next to my wheels. A blessing… it will help me get my children, maybe get a better job… but perhaps a curse. Will I lose another of my ideals and slip ever more into the mainstream, using more resources, and watching my gut grow?

How can we balance our desires to be an outstanding human against the ease of being accepted into a society full of assumptions, many of which are half mad?

Perhaps we could look at our bodies like a yardstick measuring how well we accomplish our goals. Sure, if you are a twenty-two-year-old, powerlifter with a high metabolism, this might not apply to you, but you’re also not reading this. But for most of us who wish to respect the Earth as much as we can, live in a healthy manner, and be productive, our body could help us measure how well we’re doing.

Maybe I can give electricity a rest and do a few things myself, ride to the store, and spend some of my free time going on a hike, but what if my positive habits slow down? If I have junk on me, it most likely means I’m making more junk for my world. If I’m doing well, my body will notice, I’ll feel better, and be treating my world with greater respect. But if I’m getting some junk in the WildernessPunk, perhaps it’s time to rethink my game and leave that car parked all weekend.

You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this, Hell, my hero is a cop, go figure.

Dionysus Cash

WildernessPunk: Happiness or Rocking from the Bottom, Rolling to the Top

What do you need to be Happy, is it out of your reach, or did you read the WP Pleasure article and ensure you have fun every day?

But what defines Happiness?

I’m sure there are as many answers as there are different people. However, folks with an anthropological bent, such as myself, seek to find common threads, which if tugged, help us reach to the truth of the human condition.

Things turn us on and other things turn us off, but again are there themes or archetypes which connect us as a species? Still, what it is which makes most of us happy? Like Mr. Terrence said in The Shining, “You pour them, and I’ll knock them back, Lloyd”

Unhappiness

Perhaps the key to finding happiness is also defining what creates unhappiness. Again, what makes me unhappy might not affect another person as much or maybe even be a good thing. My reaction to finding a snake in the wild would be a lot different than a person with a serpent phobia. I have long said, when seeking a mate, the absence of qualities you find annoying in the other person, is nearly as important as having similar tastes.

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Possessions

Some would say prosperity is the key to happiness and the person with the most toys wins. Research does not back this up. More money leads to more spending and only moving out of poverty and into the lowest economic class tends to make people feel better. So nope, despite what this country encourages, money won’t buy contentment, although it can sure help to make your weekend BBQ a whole lot better.

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Variety

For many of us, repetition is a bad thing and maybe the type of occurrence which could, over time, drive you mad. Same street, same, job, same task, same building, same clock I’m staring at while hoping part of my life passes by faster. Yet, we should also consider some people find peace within the known. Familiar walls deliver comfort for most of us. We like being warm and safe, I can tell, for most of the world sacrifices vast possibilities for such things.

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Like most things in life, Law and Chaos rests on a bell curve. Too much of the same every day and we’ll feel useless, like something which is little more than an organic machine fulfilling a role. Another could step in a do the same thing. Nothing is special and new. Where Chaos can be exciting and hip, full of promise, mystery, and adventure, it can also ruin lives and throw things into a spiral. Too much variety can water things down to the point where nothing gets focused on or completed.

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Yet where does happiness fit on this curve? Although predictably reduces stress, it can also reduce joy. Think of the best times in your life. Did they happen on some weird Thursday at work or where they during your trip overseas or when you got stuck in the mud during a wild camping trip? Perhaps it was the first time you saw a new mate and they threw your life a massive curve ball and nothing remained the same. I’m going to just come out and say it, overall Chaos leads to those spikes of happiness, but a certain amount of Law allows us to stay alive long enough to get to enjoy them.

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Friends

What’s the good of doing most of the positive things in life, if you can’t share them with someone? Sometimes you aren’t near family, but even if you’re currently single or with someone, having good friends can be what it’s all about. Yes, when you have a lover you can be more intimate with them, perhaps tell them things your friends might never know, but let’s face it, in this life, for most of us, our friends outlast our relationships. I’ve been married and divorced twice, but still have great friends I’ve know long before I met my first X Mrs. Bone.

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Great friends are like good time multipliers. You take something great and for each awesome buddy who shows up the good times are increased by 21%. Yep, 21%, everyone knows that. Friends can also keep the glooms away or get you back on the right track in life. Oh and FYI, in my opinion the best things to do with friends is roll with them out of town, camping, road trips, vacations… one of the best things life can offer.

Family

Yeah sure, we often belly ache about them, but no one else can share the entire span of your life as well with you. There’s something special about being able to go back to early childhood with someone, because face it, those could end up being our happiest years.

Then, when you’re a parent, whole new vistas of love and happiness open for you. Just seeing the joy in your children’s faces… excuse me, I gotta go get a tissue.

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Mates

Is there anything better than the happy glowing feeling you get when you’re with the right person? It can burn so intense you can barely breath and just pace around your abode chanting their name—mixed with praises. There’s also the calm reassurance a person has your back and likes you enough to get naked and wet with you. Yep, makes me happy.

Soft Cheese

Jennocide wanted me to remind everyone about soft cheese. Sometimes just treating yourself and maybe a few other people, well, it’s just good. I think the message here, is allow yourself a little Dionysus and share it with others who you care about.

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I could go on, but people might get annoyed because I’m being so damn cheery and I might have to change this from WildernessPunk to the UrdanHappyHunk. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to my grumpy rants next time. I also have a new project I might be busting out with soon, just in time to share a sacrilegious X-mess with my nine fans.

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You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this, Hell, my hero is a cop, go figure.

Bone's Cave Beer

WildernessPunk Justice

Justice, slow in coming, many say it’s blind. Some believe in a cosmic balance, fate, karma, we reap as we sow…

I call BS on the above. Like most things we have the power to observe, Justice is random, karma only occurs through Chaos happening to get it right sometimes. Of course, sometimes actions can channel fate. A man raping people’s daughters is more likely to be killed than the married guy selling you sliced cheese at Albertsons. Still there’s no guarantee, maybe cheese slicer cut his finger and walked by the crime scene and his blood splashed near the rolled up carpet with a lump in it. Justice is served.

Okay Boneman, tangent much?

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Wait, I have a point. Now I said Justice is random. This isn’t completely true. Even before the production of alcohol and religion created the need for cities and towns, tribes had rules, ethics, and morality. They might be looser to interpretation, but sometimes flexibility is a good thing. It isn’t too different today. Justice is usually more likely to be determined by the judge who’s picked, the jury present, and the price of the lawyer, more so than the man or woman who has their fate in their hands.

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Okay are you ready? Are you really ready? Sit back, take a deep breath, hold it. Lean forward and breath it out your nose.

I know you were raised to believe Laws exist to help us and are good morale binders. To bad they aren’t real. Let’s just ponder this shall we. I’ll pick on the USA, cuz, um, I live here. And here goes…

A few hundred years ago, not a single written law existed.

Someone didn’t trust his fellows, so he started to imagine all the ways he could control and punish them for doing anything he decided was wrong.

Religion helped, but has never been enough to really keep people in line, so officers were hired to do so. The people making the laws hired the officers and the officers enforced the rules the leaders designed and put onto paper.

Now people who were caught breaking the laws, some other guy thought up and imposed on everyone, could have their freedom, currency, and even life taken away.

Many laws remain arbitrary and change constantly, proving they had no real moral necessity, longevity, or real justification. Examples include, laws regarding slavery, voting rights, alcohol laws, drug laws, dueling, rules against Tribal Americans…

A new wave of people coming to power also change laws, which again proves their arbitrary nature.

Many laws change from state to state. Not only does the law exist or not, but even similar laws have different punishments. So a person’s legal fate is determined by imaginary distinctions in land masses, which were made up, and no one can see.

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I could go on, but I think you see the point. Laws are things thought up by mostly people who are now dead. Their legitimacy is drawn into question by their inability to stay constant over time or even over different parts of the same country. From officers to judge—personal choice, random chance, and ulterior motives alter outcomes, so that even within the same law, no two people are ever treated equally.

So yeah, um… you wrote down the law. Yep, I see it printed there. It didn’t exist for 99.99999999999999999999% of human’s time here on earth and might be dismissed as nonsense or outdated in twenty years, but… “Shut up, damn it, spend the night in jail and give me a bunch of your money.”

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Oh yeah and if you are rich enough, you don’t really have to worry about it.

Mostly these fines are made to help tax you for being naughty without the Ultra 1% having to say they created more taxes.

So what about Justice?

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It’s Law versus Chaos and Chaos always wins. Whether it is the entropy cracking your new driveway or you drawing the judge who hates you because you’re a *****, chaos rules everything. Law can fight back and control a little corner for a decade or two, but in the end Chaos tears it all away. Just ask the Romans.

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So light a candle and hope a dead man’s imagined rules will protect you through the dark night, but as with most made up ideals, Laws can hurt as often as they help, right Religion? If you don’t believe me, ask the guy getting beheaded for being gay, his overseers believe they are behaving within the bounds of decency.

Justice is served.

The only true law is the law of nature, which strangely most people in my country can avoid. The law of nature would say an out of shape, obese man cannot travel 10 miles when it’s 102 degrees. Oh wait, opps he can, because he can hop into his car and crack up the air conditioning.

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So screw it, we ignore the real laws and give lip service to fake crap some dead guy, I’d probably hate, made up out of nothing other than his prejudices, desire to control others, and motivations to force others to follow his believe system. “I can’t trust these low-lives to be decent on their own, so I’ll make them bend the knee to what I decided is right.”

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In closing, I consider myself a just person. I really don’t get into too much trouble and I’m wicked pissa nice to most people I meet. I avoid crossing paths with criminals and cops, because I hate gangs. Yeah, I’m avoiding the net every day I can. The net sure is real when it catches you and you have to pay all sorts of prices, but like a boat full of animals which repopulated the earth, in the end it is all mostly made up crap which fades over time, and is about as moral as some of those holy books. An eye for an eye. Oh wait, maybe I should turn the other cheek. Or if you try to talk to me about the legitimacy of these imagined rules, you just might see both of mine while I moon you from the top of the mountain.

I’ll be up their talking to my burning beer bottle while writing up some new commandments for you. Hell, I heard anyone can do it.

Alex of the Gods

You can grab some of my fiction here, which I promise has nothing to do with this, Hell, my hero is a cop, go figure.

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WildernessPunk Road Tripping

Normal reality you are slipping, when you start Road Tripping.

Those of you who have been following WildernessPunk for a while will remember much of the original posting revolved around some serious Road Tripping across the grand old US of A. Whether you’re for or against this country, you have to love the environments contained within. We have more open land in some of our states than whole countries enjoy.

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Yet, besides a few exceptions, I’ve been much more grounded this year. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but travel does something for your soul. I think we should all remember it doesn’t have to be something super special or a big deal to help us bust out of our routine with knew sights and experiences.

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Case in point, I’m in Sierra Vista and having a great time just walking around and exploring the place and yep, it really isn’t too exciting here…so far.

Why is this? Why does going to a different place, even one less excited then the one we just left, still do it for us? It is just not knowing what might be around the next bend, even though it’s likely to be a KFC? It is the chance to see new environments or maybe spy some animals? Perhaps meeting knew people just a little different than yourself might be the thing.

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Sometimes it obvious. Staying in Mexican Hat, nestled against the cliffs lining the San Juan river, with my father last year, well, obviously that experience was powerful. Some things are just going to be great. Going to Colorado for the first time, heading to Europe, yeah, somethings will just be an awesomeness no brainer, but what about the littler trips, which still raise your spirits and bring out a feeling of adventure in our souls even as we watch those around us going through their mundania?

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Could the anonymity be part of it? “No one knows me here, how exciting. I could re-invent myself. I’m a man of mystery in this place.” This could be part of it, but if we live in a city or a town of any real size, we could roll all day and not see a single person we know, sometimes even when we want to. It could contribute, but naw.

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Maybe it’s not so much where we are, but what we’ve left behind. Maybe what we left behind is something ten times better then way we are. Nope, won’t be moving to Sierra Vista. But this isn’t the point, maybe it is more of the trials and responsibilities we have left behind which have a hard time touching us. Let’s think about some things which cannot happen when we’re on the road or in a different place. This might not apply for every single person, but I’m making sweeping statements, it’s what I do. We’re all good at something. I’m good at sweeping statements and bumping my head.

Most of us won’t be working our normal jobs.

We aren’t doing our usual chores.

Many will not even be cooking or so much as picking a towel up off the floor.

No dropping the kids off at school or various social functions.

We leave our, “I’m too busy tos” behind and we can often catch up on goals and projects we never seem to have time for, even if it’s something as simple as reading a novel.

For the most part, there are no interruptions from spending time with loved ones and friends. No… “I’ll see you after work, school, or next weekend,” nope we’re in this together. This could be the best reason for a lot of us.

So don’t make a big deal about it. No need for weeks of planning or blowing half your paycheck. Just grab someone you care about and head out and discover a new place. A little adventure never hurts the soul, so happy Road Tripping my friends. And if you see me hitchhiking along the road, please slow down and pick me up or at least toss me a beer as you drive by.

Boney

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

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WildernessPunk Pleasure

Pleasure, we all like it, sometimes maybe too much. Pleasure gives us reasons to live, but in some cases, can also hurt or even cut our lives short, if we aren’t careful. Yet, like most things in life, there are many misunderstanding on the dichotomy between Pleasure and payback, as well as what Pleasure really is and what kind we could be striving for.

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When I say Pleasure, what comes to mind… good food, relaxing, when you’re in the middle of your favorite hobby, being with people you care about, drugs, sex? For some people finding pressure can be quite an elaborate process, whether you are spending nine hours trying to score your drugs or flying all day to visit Rome. For others it could be as simple as quick leftovers, so they can enjoy the new episode of The Walking Dead.

But what is pleasure and why do we want it? Also, why are some people searching for it more than others and in so many different ways?

First let’s discuss why we feel pleasure at all. Most aspects of any animal’s existence revolve around methods of keeping them alive and continuing the species. Not to quote Bear Grylls on purpose, but the first things we need to survive are shelter and food. We might not feel like we’re having pleasure sitting under a lean-to in the rain, but we’re enjoying it a lot more than having the rain blast us. Food which tastes good is easier to eat and we’re more likely to do so. Both of these motivations for a more pleasant experience in life are likely to keep us above ground.

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Still, after a while, we rush through meals and for most of the folks reading this, you’re used to having a roof over your head to the point you don’t notice it much. It has become a given. If someone was going to ask you what you intended to do for fun this weekend, I doubt you would say, “I’m going to enjoy not being exposed to the elements and make sure I don’t become malnourished.”

As with much of life, Humanity has evolved beyond these baser animal needs, or at least us lucky privileged few have. This evolution has also affected what we desire. In the land of plenty, there are more and more options. We will do many things this weekend and most likely about 90% of your activities, if not more, will be things it would have been impossible to do a hundred years ago. We might see a movie, try some new ethnic foods, go wind surfing, fly over the Grand Canyon, or drive out to explore some place a hundred miles away.

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Let’s look at the difference between our base, perhaps Pleasure driven, survival needs and what we’ve become. Some things always make me want to laugh. We have a thousand layers of perfected manners and political correctness, but no matter how evolved we might like to imagine ourselves, sex drives us crazy. We want sex, need sex, will do anything for it… or will we? “No, I’ve risen above such base needs, I respect the opposite gender and, oh fuck it, just nail me!”

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I know, I’m crass, but am I wrong and what might evolving past such needs mean? Oh, now I can just find my splinter group of weirdness online or use phone aps for dating. I’m so advanced. Hell, back in the old days you had to go out and meet people to have sex. What fools.

We could talk about sex all night, or well I could, but let’s move on, my step mom might be reading this.

Food and shelter has lost all semblance of anything approaching reality. Some of the poorest people in this country, might have air conditioning or central heating which puts them centuries ahead of most of the wealthiest individuals who have lived for the last 6000 years. I could be close to dead dog broke, but still grab some shrimp tonight if I wanted. Could 99.9999% of humanity have done that since, err, the dawn off…humanity?

In our current state, Pleasure has been elevated to an unneeded extent. “Oh, I feel like ice cream and darn there are only 80 styles of choose from. Perhaps I’ll pick from thousands of streaming movies while I sit on my expanding ass.”

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We think about pleasure killing us. “Three people will die from opiates before this program is complete,” but despite how horrible some types of drug addictions are, can they even hold a flicking candle in the rain to how many people die from obesity related causes? I’ll just say it, if you’re dishing on meth users when you watch television over four hours a day and are fifty pounds overweight, you can eat a big fuck you sandwich. I’m not in favor of meth, but if you think you can stand on some high horse, you need to readjust your thinking.

It wouldn’t be too hard to argue our evolution in Pleasure is killing many of us and again I would think obesity more than kicks drug use in taking the most people down. But extreme sports, driving drunk, relationships, and letting a good night lead you into the wrong environment, can also become a way where the pursuit of happiness takes you out.

Dionysus, just be

Perhaps we should look toward what our real purpose in life might be. Are we like the drummer in Spinal Tap…? “Have a good time, all the time.” Should life be a Dionysian attempt to have fun each day? Well, um, yeah. Still many of us have children and responsibilities. But why have kids if they aren’t fun. You have fun with your kids, right? Yes.

spinal tap drummer

Pleasure doesn’t need to be something we build up to some grand vision. If taking your kids out for pizza is fun, then have at it. If you’re single and feel the need to get some snuggle, good luck to you. Maybe some other guy wants to eat some of those happy mushrooms and run around in the woods, just watch out for cliffs and cactus buddy. Perhaps all you want to do is watch a little Stand Up at home on a Saturday Night.

I’m certainly not going to dictate what’s right and wrong in our pursuit of Pleasure, but might have to quote a little Crowley, “Do as thou Wilt, as long as it hurts none.” Still we all need to keep in mind, to be careful when judging how others might be finding their own joy. Religion followers should not come down on gays because being with someone of the same sex is how they find fulfillment and perhaps gays shouldn’t come down on people who feel more complete and safe because they convinced themselves some deity watches over them. Who is anyone to judge another? When is really comes down to it, none of us know much about why we’re really here. Hell, maybe homosexually is a progressive evolutionary leap, but then again, maybe there could be a Christian God. Personally, I don’t think so, but I could be wrong, because, I’m just a silly human. What do I know?

Burning wine

I talk about Yig a bit on these pages, but when it comes to pleasure, Dionysus holds the cornucopia of desire on high. So, let me end with this. The other day Dionysus appeared to me in the guise of a burning wine bottle and said, “The secret of life is to have some fun and do something you like every day.” Pretty simple, but then again, simple things give me Pleasure.

new-london

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

Skinjumpers

WildernessPunk ShitIdiot

I invented a new word. Shitidiot. Kind of has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? I swear I wasn’t inspired by Trump, okay, perhaps a little. But this word isn’t about him.

Think on it. There are two major categories of people you might not want to hang out with. Evil people and stupid people. Still each of these things on its own has some level of respectability. For instance, the wealthiest one percent. They are shit ass evil, but they aren’t idiots. The people who vote for them might be, but they are living large and are an inspiration to, so many would be evil scumbags.

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.Conversely, you have the idiot. This might be just a guy whose goals and choices are much simpler than yours. Anyone who watching more than four hours of sports a day while growing less fit themselves or the guy who thinks facts are not obstacles to slow you down while seeking the truth, falls in the idiot zone.

The evil one percenters, might by their nature, be getting more evil accomplished on a wider scale, but then again, you almost have to give them some level of respect. When they go to war with a country to steal its resources, they have no delusions about it. They have come to grips with their desires and are willing to fulfill them regardless of the consequences. There is a certain honor in just admitting, “I’m going to strive to be self-centered and take whatever I want for me and mine. Call me evil, I don’t care. I will kill, confuse, and trick my way and no rules apply, unless I get caught. Even then, nine times out of ten I’ll figure a way to forge ahead.”

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“Would you like to grab my wife’s pussy Mr. President or perhaps walk into my teenaged daughter’s room while she changes?”

Idiots can be annoying as well, but sometimes dumb hijinks are fun too. Honest laughter over nothing important can be releasing. The simple life can take a load off your shoulders. Sometimes being with certain folk is like being in the woods with friends as a kid. Hey look, a frog.

It’s when the two combine which takes reality to a new level of annoying. Yes, I know the richest 1% weld an evil which overwhelms some random dumbasss holding a tiki torch in a Klan march, but how often do most of us ever met such devils made flesh?

Instead most of us are plagued by a lower level of a malign fool and depending on how well you managed to insulate yourself for the rest of the world, it could easily be on a daily basis. If you work at the wrong place, it could be hourly or every few minutes.

I had a friend once who was an idiot. Just a dumb ass. The guy that would try to punch you and then fall in the mud. He’d come to visit and pour himself a half gallon of vodka and OJ before I would wake up and start heckling the people walking by in front of my place. Just a knucklehead. Then he tried to rape my girlfriend’s roommate. You just became a Shitidiot.

How could an evil person lower they standing to Shitidiot? Oh, it’s easy. If someone somehow believed the religion they used to control the masses was real, it would be a good start. Add to that racism and homophobia. People who believe these things are both evil and dumb, welcome to the world of being a Shitidiot, loser patrol worshipers.

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From the annoying guy at work who’s taking about how the ‘fill in the blank’ group ruined the USA, between his celebrity worshiping fixation, to both of your boss, who hates, ‘fill in the blank,’ many of us have some serious Shitidiot issues to deal with each day.

So for the more enlightened, I give you this new term to help speed through conversations so one can get to the meat of the story. “Yeah when I was at the store this real Shitidiot was in front of me and…”

You can thank me later.

Alex of the Gods

You can check out some of my fiction here if you feel inclined.

WildernessPunk Reciprocity

Reciprocity. Trade. Barter. Rare for one to hear someone talking the concept down. Quite the opposite, most people you meet give it lip service as something they seek to do at the very least. Perhaps, you might have a more lawful friend who reminds you some activities should be claimed on your taxes…blah, blah, yawn.

Reciprocity covers all human history and was our currency long before we had… ah, currency. It also, even today, bleeds into other powerful subjects, such as relationships, interaction with friends and family, and affects places like school and working environments.

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The IRS defines Bartering as “the act of trading goods or services between two or more parties without the use of money. Bartering can benefit individuals, companies and countries that see a mutual benefit in exchanging goods and services rather than cash. It also enables those who are lacking hard currency to obtain goods and services.”

And. of course. they want their cut. “The only thing that is not legal (about Bartering) is failing to claim bartering on your taxes. “

aaa

The sad thing is most of us don’t Barter enough for even the most concerned citizen to worry about how to file on their bartering activities. However, if we look at things in a non-economic sense, much of our lives are an arrangement of social barters.

Actions such as parents giving their children taxi service, friends letting a buddy grab a beer, and helping a coworker with something, are overlooked as a series of complex barters. Things can have more subtle layers such as, the guy who cracks people up, the nice person of the opposite sex who always leaves you feeling a little better after a conversation, or the dude who brings extra food camping. Much of this unnoticed Reciprocity goes unpaid and nothing can ever be equal in this world, but even these small social dances alter our perception of ourselves and others.

baratto

Other types of Reciprocity are more obvious. How many of us have helped a friend move, who has, in the past, helped us? If you mooch some food or beverages the last time you visited a buddy, most of you will think to bring a little extra something with you the next time you visit.

I suppose someone could build up their Reciprocity ‘karma’ intentionally, but it is usually an unacknowledged deal between people. Such things are almost never mentioned other than a few sentences of praise when someone throws down for you, or a grumble about someone nearing the end of their mooching rope.

Again, let us harken back to days of yore. Slow down and contemplate the majority of our existence as a species. The invention of money is a very recent event. Many have speculated organized religion appears in roughly the same time period as currency. The control of property along with the control of your mind.

Bike

So much of life can involve running on a treadmill, not for yourself, but for others. We can feel trapped under an imaginary ceiling. “This is how much money you are allowed this month for the amount of time you’re willing to throw away.” Barter fights against such a concept. In theory, there is no limit to what you could achieve. Kind words and noble acts are paid off with acquiring things which you might have waited months for. Often you are doing a favor for someone in the process.

We spin the win win.

red tank II

So what is my point?

Reciprocity is a system of honor hundreds of times older than our current method of measuring goods. Sometimes newer can be better, but staying under the radar and living free is better still. We have enough which rips us away from our animal nature. Reciprocity brings us back to the soul of man and womankind. The ability to judge yourself what is right, just, and measure it as you see fit and not have it decided by nameless others one has never met.

Whether it happens online or with your oldest friend, we all save when things are shared instead of discarded, when trips are made together, and when events, projects, and activities are done with others.

Isn’t this what life is about? So spend some time helping someone you care for, flip off the tax man, and make the world a little bit of a better place.

Boney Utah

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

new beds

WildernessPunk City

Hello dear readers and explorers seeking the truth of the wild within our modern explosion of technological ease. Sorry for a little gap since my last post. I had a WP written, proofed, and ready to rip, but withheld it due to an overabundance of personal discourse and negativity.

Yeah, I chose to spare you all that.

Arches

Instead, I’m looking to take us into a different direction. Those of you who have followed the WildernessPunk posts, will remember I was living off the land a year ago, sleeping in the wilds while making most of my cash, which allowed me to do so, through writing and web based gigs. Thus, the origin of the WildernessPunk ideal.

Camp ! Writing Spot

You might also be aware, I’ve been wrestling a bit with the legitimacy of continuing my posts, now that I have a roof over my head and live in the middle of a sprawling city. (Tucson’s population might not be huge, but it’s dimensions covers the same amount of land as New York City, including the borrows.)

Yet, after some time away from The Castle and in the middle of town, I’ve engaged in a new line of thinking. Is the goal of WildernessPunk to shine the light on one person, who with a little love and luck, is able to reach some blissful state for a few months or should it be a more universal concept or goal?

Gecko

Is the parent coming home from a job, they drive to, going to get much use out of stories taking place in the forest, while they’re making dinner for three children? Besides escapism and poking some neurons, its stays a less than practical application.

If you add suburbia to the cities, we are talking about the majority of this country’s population. (According to new numbers released from the U.S. Census Bureau, 80.7 percent of the U.S. population lived in urban areas as of the 2010 Census, a boost from the 79 percent counted in 2000.) Most other countries are similar and are, in many cases, more developed. In light of these facts, what if we looked at this WildernessPunk with a different perspective. Instead of proclaiming the glory of the wilds, in an Edward Abbey manner. “It’s great out here for the chosen few, aren’t you jealous of my million dollar view?”

Monument Valley

Since most of us live in industrialized areas, what if the concept of WildernessPunk could be the idea of people within the city looking out? Finding a way to protect what is left of our natural world, while also returning it into the city.

The Wilderness aspect could be our elevation of its importance in our life and our respect for it. The Punk could represent our tricky and creative methods used to preserve and restore nature, even when surrounding by of sea of big boxes and right angles. Also, perhaps using high tech methods of environmental protection, which are new inventions, but the type of imaginative things which will give us a chance to keep our species and all creatures living on this beautiful planet.

Safety Beer

So yeah, that’s it. On one hand simple and on the other it becomes the greatest and most important issue we will ever face. We don’t need to live like we have a safety cap on our lives to help. Let’s explore ways, we can stretch our muscles as well as our dollar, while helping both ourselves, our country, and the environment together. Buckle in. Let’s go!

cyber city

You can grab some of my fiction here, which maybe has a little something to do with this.

Bone Bush