Challenges – WildernessPunk

WildernessPunk: I feel like I’m taking Crazy Pills

What is happening to our world and why do even the professionals, making hundreds of thousands of dollars to understand these times, seem so clueless?

With no attempt to proclaim any sort of personal aptitude, why is it I was almost one of the only people pointing out (even if it was just to my wife and a handful of internet associates) that tRump’s Memorandum of Understanding was failed before it started? Not to be Captain Obvious, but the first line item included the need for Isreal to cease hostilities against Lebanon. Of course this wasn’t going to happen, in fact the opposite of this happened, the horrific nation of Isreal went out of their way to avoid military targets and just murdered dozens of civilians to insure there could be no confusion they were continuing to follow their pro-genocide holy book, to engage in genocide themselves just like they claim their sky daddy would want.

This is not any anti-Isreal article, although every American from Mr. Maga, to Wilma Woke should be against that country. Instead, I want to look into how nearly every news source praised this obviously flawed and hollow attempt at a peace deal like it was real or even had a 1% chance of happening.

News, and the explosion of memes and comedians, instead focused on the 300 billion dollars promised to Iran and a side salad of reflecting pool nonsense, while the giant glowing first promise of the whole agreement wasn’t going to last 24 hours. Why wasn’t every talking head pointing this out or debating over if there was any chance Isreal might stop being evil and cease killing innocent men, women, children, and babies?

I would suggest the 300 billion was included to distract us from the obvious, but we can’t even be let off that easy since it’s Iran’s idea and I don’t think they are trying to distract people from how evil Isreal is, just the opposite.

Sigh… I lived through the Iran Hostages year and if you told me then I would live in a world where Iran is fighting against terrorists and Isreal is the evilest country in the middle East, I might have had a very hard time believing you.

So now I looking at this mess of dual wars and seeing an almost zero chance of this being able to work out easily. I see only two ways out of this and talk about a zero chance of something happening…

Methods to Finish these Conflicts

The US could cut off all aid to Isreal, freeze their assets, and block all trade until they cease their attempts at Genocide.
The US could say ‘peace out’ to the rest of the world and force the American Oil Companies to cease selling any of our oil to Europe and elsewhere for higher profits and ensure they only sell the oil they produce to their fellow Americans.

Both of these strategies would work but are as sure as fuck not going to happen. In fact, I may have discovered some of the only things less likely to happen than Isreal stopping its murderous assault on the civilians of Lebanon.

Again, I ask for people to see through the noise and propaganda and look directly at the issues themselves and use logic to not only understand what is happening but to attempt to find a way to fix the issue.

The US is going to have a very hard time taking over Iran so we can steal their oil which I’m sure was the administration’s original intent. tRump has admitted as much on several occasions. With this off the table and the economy of the world damaged as we struggle to make outdated systems cling to life as overpopulation meets climate change and declining prosperity, real choices must be made.

Will the US continue to rob from the poor to give to the rich, while beating the drum of 1980s economics or will there be any chance of real innovation happening? I’ll answer that one for you, or at least make a prediction. As resources dwindle and the wealth of the mega rich increases the leaders will seek to tighten their grip on the balls of the people and will attempt to rape the last of the worlds resources while building a stronger fascist control over the lives of people like us.

I guess the real question is… what are we going to do to stop them?

You can grab some WildernessPunk or find out how it started at its main site here.

WildernessPunk: Why The ‘Greatest’ Generation and the Boomers have Failed and Destroyed the United States

The above title isn’t some sort of click bait. I don’t get clicks. It is simply how I feel and what I believe. In this case, I also happen to be right.

The United States has experienced few times without turmoil and acting upon fiendish desires. We began the country with genocide against the first world tribes. For more than a third of our existence we continued with the worst of humanity’s curses, slavery. More recently we have abused underdeveloped countries robbing their resources and taking advantage of their cheap labor.

I guess it should come as no surprise we have entered another age of evil. Like usual, this one is fueled by greed. Except the greed this time is different. We can no longer steal land and everything else from the first world tribes, because we have taken it all already. Slavery is illegal, at least officially. Third world countries have woken up and grown stronger and will have to be conquered for us to steal their resources.

But since the rich only get greedier, this time the victim will be us, their own countrymen.

After WWII America had a peak of unity, a unity which we have lost. Companies gave bonuses, landlords charged something closer to what people could handle, and services were affordable. These have all but disappeared. Over the past ten years many rents have doubled, most food has, and every business who can is outsourcing middle class and factory jobs to AI any chance they get.

Nothing has become more important than accumulating cash and attempting to be one of the few who gets to live large and once a person starts down this road there is never enough. We have become the sheep in Animal Farm, but instead of the farmer leaving, he has moved us into a pit and cut our feed in half so he can put a new pool in his fourth vacation home.

Why I blame the ‘Greatest,’ and Boomer Generation for Bringing Us Here

After the constant need for international conflict died down in the mid seventies, the United States tried to clean up and cement its reputation. It passed the Civil Rights laws, approved more right for women, including abortion, environmental protections were enforced and for a while the Untied States was a good place to be. If nothing else at least you knew we were trying.

Something else was happening as well. All the wealth taken from underdeveloped countries mixed with the vast resources still left from what the Europeans took from the first nation people let a whole generation live better than any people who walked the Earth had ever lived before. Great wealth met minuscule prices in a perfect storm of prosperity. College was a few hundred dollars a semester. Two story houses cost little over ten grand.

It was big fat pie and almost everyone got a slice.

Almost anyone could be a home owner. More people went to college than ever before. A few decades later those twenty thousand dollar houses would be worth thirty times as much and those owning property of any kind could write their own ticket.

But something else happened as well. The oh so ‘Greatest’ and the Boomer generations began to feel they must be special. No one had ever done as well as them and, from the looks of things no one else would ever come close. Gen X couldn’t do it on a scale even close to their parents and grandparents. And millennials were working two jobs just to be able to share an apartment with roommates and wouldn’t pay off their student loans until they were a few decades older than when their grandparents bought their first home.

They couldn’t pull off what the Greatest/Boomers had done. They weren’t even in the same field. This began to make the pre Gen Xers feel like they did it all better than everyone, were better than everyone, probably deserved more than anyone. Gone was the desire to protect the Earth. They saw people richer than them and wondered how they could match the levels of wealth they witnessed.

Not everyone would be able to make it. Things would need to be cut. Animal rights, the environment, worker’s rights, and fair wages. If people wanted health care they should have worked harder to get a job where it would be easy to afford. Greed overrode the animals, the planet, and their fellow man. No other generation would ever be the same or as worthy as them. They deserved what their genius has bestowed on them. They would take it and everything else.

If other countries were waking up, they would just rob from their own. Nothing was as important as getting more. They would lie, cheat, steal, plunder and then do it all again next week. Their God had turned away from the teaching of their prophet and embraced the Prosperity Gospel. Their only prophet was profit. Your worth was determined by your bank account. Rich people were more important. Rich children more valuable. They were smart enough to make all this money so who else would be smart enough to lead? Who else deserved…was entitled to getting their way?

America has been destroyed by the Boomers with the help of the ‘Greatest.’ They took something that was running well, stole all the parts and left the husk of the vehicle which can’t go anywhere.

Gas prices, inflation, rental costs, what do they care when with a good accountant they barely have to pay their fair share of taxes. Cut services and health care so the outdated, fossils, who make billions off their outdated fossil fuels, can once again steal from other countries. They have forced money which could be used to help Americans to pay for war and death so the billionaires can make more while killing the planet in the process.

Maybe you have a different opinion, but I see a few generations which had things better than any of us will ever see. They took their luck and then just kept taking and taking. Greed replaced empathy, humanity, and good will, all the while throwing the environment under the bulldozer.

They are the people in charge. They could have embraced green energy, but they didn’t. They could have used all the money they wasted on wars supporting the dying fossil fuel system on supporting the Earth and its people, but they didn’t. For the price of our wars in Iraq the government could have put free solar energy on every home, apartment, and business in the United States, but they didn’t. They could have let women keep their rights but they didn’t. You could have led the way in protecting the environment but you didn’t.

So yeah, great job taking it, hoarding it, and then ruining it. The final grade is coming due and as far as I see it. You got an F.

Maybe when you are gone the rest of us will have a chance to try to start over, but because of you, it might be too late.

You can grab some WildernessPunk or find out how it started at its main site here.

The Top Ten Reasons Role Playing Gamers are More Prepared Than You

They are used to facing down fascist totalitarian overlords
Gamers spend whole days dealing with hidden surprises trying to tear out their throats
Sooner than later huge groups of guards are hunting them down
Each day they are living through an apocalypse with limited supplies
Gamers understand life is usually a handful of allies vs an almost unconquerable state
They never use their real names
Disguises and infiltration are smarter than always fighting
RPGers always have snacks
They can have fun for hours without spending a dime
Rolling their 30 year old dice isn’t melting the icecaps

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

The Top Ten Reasons Why Someone Should Work for ICE

Your self hate can be channeled elsewhere
It will distract people away from how small your penis is
Mask conveniently hide ugly faces
Reminds you, you aren’t the biggest loser in town each time you ruin someone’s life
You’ll look more muscular with all that padding
You always wanted to be a Nazi
Someone, besides your AI girlfriend, will finally take you seriously
Your Klan hood is in the laundry
People different than you are scary and make you pee a little
You’ll be able to get a lot of free sandwiches

Dak is asked to hunt down renegade clones. His main problem, he’s dating one.

WildernessPunk: Propaganda, Falsehoods, and Lies

I’m not setting out to write some whiny article about why I’m mad about being lied to or to point out how the United States’ government currently has a foundation built on falsehoods. Instead, I’d like to dive into why some people tend to believe all sorts of nonsense they are told, as long as it is spewed by the right pairs of lips, while others hesitate to make important decisions and use logic and critical thinking to attempt to ensure the choices they make are as sound as possible.

I think many people have experienced situations where a speaker is obviously spouting lies and spattering people with his toxic imagination. You, the listener, find these lies painfully easy to disregard as falsehoods, but crowds of people are cheering and discussing the fabrications as facts later.

So why does it happen? Why do some people swallow the nonsense with vapid glee, while others walk away scratching their head wondering how even a single individual could believe such inaccurate ramblings?

Reasons why people might believe obvious falsehoods

They respect the liar
They were raised in religious environments where impossible fables are accepted as facts
Lack of education
Apathy
Failure to research things they find important
The lie reinforces what they already believe
The lie reinforces what they want to believe
Failure to develop critical thinking skills
Not reading
Emotions and beliefs are seen as more important than facts
The lies reinforce types of hate which they feel elevate their self-worth by making them feel superior to others
The lies might help them make money or get a mate
They suffer from one or more forms of mental illness

With these causes in mind, we have a chance to understand why someone might believe statements which others find laughable dribble. Another aspect of lying which benefits the liar is engaging in a consistent approach. Could you imagine Barak Obama talking about hope and elevating the American people and then suddenly switching gears and diving into how he must flush his toilet twelve times? Yet when tRump discusses such ridiculous notions, it doesn’t mess with his flow of speech because it is just as worthless and stupid as the thing he said before it and what he will ramble on about afterward.

This would also occur in some places like churches. If someone just told you about how a divine being rained fire down from the heavens to kill hundreds of innocent people, and you believed it was true, why wouldn’t you believe this divine power was also concerned which bathrooms humans used? Since neither make any logical or coherent sense, they become equalized in their embrace of irrationality.

I discussed why people might accept lies, but while some open their mouths to be fed obvious gobbledygook by the shovelful, others discard such fabrications with ease. I could make a list of why this might be, but much of it will simply be the opposite of what I outlined above. Things such as having an open mind, engaging in critical thinking, and being well read are good starters.

All this is fine and good, but I think there is one attribute which stands miles above the others and this is the strength to accept you could be wrong about a subject and possess the ability to change one’s mind.

Think about how much better life would be for all of us if people could put their pride aside and not always assume they are correct on every issue. The jails and prisons would certainly have less inmates if the false sense of pride could have been removed from many people.

“I’m not going to stand for being disrespected!” Why because working at Jiffy Lube makes you infallible? “I’m perfect and can never be wrong!” Why because you got Cs in high school? Why is it so many people are bursting with pride over nothing more than being the 9,786,456,236^th person to work hard during their life or make a family? “I haven’t read a book in five years and get most of my news from Facebook, but it’s inconceivable I could be wrong about anything.”

Where do such thoughts come from? Why do many of the people who have done the least have the most swollen pride? Perhaps all they have is the feeling I don’t take crap from anyone. Still not taking gruff isn’t the same thing as believing one is always correct, but at times they do appear related. Many have often stated the more educated in a subject you are, the more you realize what you don’t know. Perhaps the inverse is also true. The less you know about a subject the more certain you are right about what you know about it.

You can see this often during man on the street interviews where people tell you they are against things such as Critical Race Theory, but then are unable to define what CRT is.

So how can we solve this? I’d tell people to have an open mind, be able to admit you are wrong, and be open to changing one’s opinion. The problem is the people who can’t do these things won’t be reading this or anything like it.

The only real answer is for each free thinker to do their best to help a few people evolve to stronger ways of thinking as we travel on our paths through life. Most who need this advice will resist you, but you might help a handful of people along the way and one can hope they will pass these values onto their offspring and over time humanity has a chance to improve.

Remember less than two hundred years ago half the population thought slavery was acceptable. Some races and even woman weren’t allowed to vote until very recently. Every year the percentage of people rejecting primitive religions is increasing. Humanism is winning, but these things take time and there will always be backsliding and with the weakened environment creating more economic hardships for individuals and families, we might see a lot of two steps back.

As the environment collapses, the mega rich grab a larger percentage of family’s income, and fascists fight to control the people easily influenced with hate, the free thinkers have a hard road ahead of them, but this has never stopped the real heroes, and if you can put away your pride and admit you might be wrong about a subject, one of these heroes is you.

You can grab a Taste of my fiction here Can Dak be a detective and Anarchist at the same time?

WildernessPunk: What’s Up

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buddy: “Nice.”

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

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

Ear Perking Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for listening, now go get some air.

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

WildernessPunk: Narcissism, Debates, and Cultural World View

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

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

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

But tell us how you really feel…

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

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

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

So why are people still following the orange monster?

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

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

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

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

Could you do it?

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for listening feel free to add your take below

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

WildernessPunk – Restless

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self Imposed Suckage:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life Testing Attributes:

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

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

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

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

Civilized Grind:

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

Human Friction:

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

Environmental Challenges:

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

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

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

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

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

Bring the party to me.

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

Construct things on the cheap

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

Embrace your creative drive

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

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

Thanks for your time and remember to embrace the adventure.

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

WildernessPunk- Homeless

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

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

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

The Homeless as Heroes:

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

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

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

Why Liberals Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing

There is no population more environmentally healthy than the Homeless:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why Conservatives Should Respect and Admire the People Surviving Without Housing

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

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

Christian Hierarchy of Holiness:

God
Jesus
The Profits/Saints
Priests
Christian Families

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks For reading.

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

WildernessPunk- 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.