I'm releasing myself from as many "shoulds" as possible. It has almost turned into something of a running joke among some of my friends that whenever one of us says that they should be doing something, someone else says, "should", in such a way as to make the person question where their motives are coming from. For me, if I can't replace the "should" with "want to", I'm going to find a way to not do it. I didn't vote in the primary election yesterday because I had no intrinsic motivation to do so. That's actually the first election I intentionally skipped. I remember how powerless I felt after each of the handful of times I've voted in the past - that the ritual I had just performed was on the whole meaningless and would effectively change nothing. Its only real effectiveness is in maintaining the illusion of democracy for those awake enough to care but still too myopic to see through the game.
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I want life to be easy and fun. (note that had this paragraph not come right after the first, I would have been inclined by habit to say "life should be easy and fun") It's amazing how much that wish goes against the unspoken assumptions of our culture and of civilization - the assumptions of life being a problem to be solved or a set of numbers to be earned, that most of one's life for most people just has to be hard and boring, and there's no way around it. I don't accept those assumptions, and I intend to be living proof that there is a way around, or out, rather. As I desire, I intend to be unapologetically lazy. And then I'll turn around and be just as unapologetically dilligent and creative in whatever project I'm inspired to pursue. It's so much easier when the motivation wells up from within.
That said, it seems that the process of rewilding is a monumental task, being without a tribe, without a culture, and already beyond the age of peak mental malleability. I intend, though, to build momentum and be persistent in learning as much as I can as thoroughly as I can, and to put that knowledge to good daily use. A lot of what I want to learn about is right in line with my desire for life to be easy and fun. The learning part may be slow and hard (although not boring), but once the knowledge of self/community-sufficiency is gained, it'll make life a lot more easy and stress-free. For one small example, take squatting to poop. Certainly, it's hard at first to fine tune your balance and figure out exactly what position to be in, but with practice, it actually becomes a much easier way to move your bowels. I didn't notice it at first, but once I got comfortable with the process, I could relax and actually move my bowels more quickly and in greater quantity. There was a threshold of difficulty to get past, but now that I'm on the other side, it's so much easier to behave as my body is adapted to behave.
I have more thoughts, but I'm tired of being on the computer, so I might be back later with more.
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