I've had a mental block against writing for a while which I think I'm about to come out of. I've been seeking an outlet lately, but I've not felt like I could say anything here. That seems to be a relatively common hurdle that I need to get over. I'm treating this blog as if it needs to be perfect. As much as I like to think so, I didn't leave behind my perfectionist side back in sophomore year. There's also the part about what I write here hurting people unintentionally. But I've got to remind myself, among others, that this blog is for my benefit primarily. It's a space I can use to sculpt my thoughts. I just happen to also find it useful to share those thoughts with everyone else, both as a broadcasting service and to receive feedback. I also tend to worry about whether I'm being too long-winded.

Well, I'm putting those concerns and worries aside because I have things to say and a place to say them, so I'm gonna. This post'll probably be mostly stream of consciousness-type stuff. I've got stuff I've got stored up from at least a month of writer's block. So here we go -

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We had a huge wind/thunderstorm here a little over two weeks ago. It knocked the electricity out for close to half a million people in the metro area for several days. That was lots of fun. Huge branches were downed in our backyard from a maple next door (the leaves from which jumpstarted the carbon portion of my compost pile), so it looked a little bit like a jungle. I loved having the air conditioning off and the lights off at night. I enjoyed time away from this addicting computer, spending more time than usual experiencing the world, unmediated by a screen. The one thing I did miss was free access to the refrigerator. We quickly got out and ate all the animal foods possible, so it's not like there was much in there that I was missing out on, but just not having that convenience of being able to look in the fridge whenever I wanted to became the biggest burden for me somehow. The one big loss from the storm personally was that the tent I had set up in the backyard broke. That was where I was sleeping most nights. The first two nights without power, I still slept outside, under the sky, on a full-length folded out lawn chair, where there was actually enough air movement that I was more comfortable than the people sleeping inside on beds. Nearly everyone cheered when the power finally came back on, 67 hours later. I didn't. I'll always cheer when the power goes out. It's good practice.

One of the weirdest things to come back to after Dancing Rabbit was indoor plumbing. Why shit in (somewhat) clean water when you could better use it to drink or to water a garden? And why flush away perfectly good shit when you could compost it and turn it into fertilizer? And then, when you go to squat on a toilet, there's the splash factor you have to worry about. And why is it necessary to pee inside? We train our dogs to go outside to do their business (actually, it's more like we train them to stay inside and then have to additionally train them to not mark the territory of where they've been trained to live), why can't humans?

At Dancing Rabbit, they have a humanure system set up, with composting toilets (buckets that you sprinkle sawdust in after you're done) and humey piles that cook in a compost pile for a year before they turn into usable soil. I really didn't want to turn the lever of any flush toilet ever again when I first got back, and with good reason. Within a week of returning home, a toilet I flushed overflowed, which was a big smelly mess. That toilet has since fallen into disrepair and my mom has spent many hours of frustration (with my help every once in a while)attempting to replace the innards of the tank contraption, and to no avail. I'd really rather shit in a bucket. Or even better, grab a shovel and head for some woods.


Just after I wrote the part about training dogs to go outside, our new family member, Emma, was let outside to poop. She's a 10 week old, six pound, beagle mix. She's the runt of the litter (the mom and dad live next door) and is very cute, soft, floppy. White with big brown blobs. So far, she's mostly been doing a good job of getting along with Lady, our 14 year old, 16 pound terrier. At first, I resisted getting attached to her because, generally, I don't like the idea of having pets. I love animals, but I don't want them domesticated when I'm trying to go feral myself. I've heard the philosophical argument made that humans keep pets to have someone to sympathize with their own cagedness. We generally treat pets as a lower caste of humans - keeping them locked up within boxes of various sizes, from the literal cage, to the backyard, to the leash around the neck. They're fed "food" that's even more bland and processed than human "food". They're trained with rewards and punishments exactly what's acceptable behavior, and when broken, lead even more tamed and boring lives than most of us live, looking forward only to the next opportunity to be rewarded or to get out of their most restrictive cage. Many, of course, grow to love their cages, finding them secure and comforting, just like every human I know. And of course, any animals that we take with us into the realm of civilization also have the corresponding population problems. And we sterilize many of them. I just finished reading Brave New World. I wonder if that's coming for humans. (And by coming, I mean coming back and expanding, because I'm aware that some humans have already been subjected to involuntary sterilizations. US citizens even. Before Hitler made eugenics unpopular. For a while anyway.)


I had another bubble of hope pop the other day. I was reading Ran's zine, Superweed 4. First, I should mention that Ran is still one of the people I've positioned as an authority figure to look up to, imitate, and please. In the zine, he's basically journaling during a wilderness bike trip, and by the end of it, he, someone who is strongly anti-civ, is sick of the wilderness and can't wait to get back to civilization. From there, he goes on to say that it'll be impossible for him to ever fully undomesticate himself. Civilization is his home, even as dysfunctional as it is, and he'll always be drawn back to it. The best he can hope for it to live on the fringes of civilization and try to get the best of both worlds. Since I put so much stock in what he says, this little part crushed my hopes of ever becoming a full-time hunter-gatherer. So without that naively cushioning hope beneath me anymore, I got pretty depressed and despairing for a little bit. I've got a quote from Radiohead as the "headline" for my myspace profile right now that fits the feeling - "your fantasies are unlikely. but beautiful." Despair is a hard emotion to feel, but in the end, it always ends up being more motivating than hope. Hope is passive; despair opens the door for action, since there's nothing to lose after all.

I watched a documentary ealier today, Modern Tribalism, which explores the sub-culture movement in modern society towards ritual practices very similar to those carried out by primitive cultures - primarily, tattooing, piercing, and festivals centered around a fire. When I was younger, I always said that I would never want to get a tattoo or a piercing. I wanted to keep my body "natural". Why would I want to improve upon what I was given by God? But as my friend George said, life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. Things like piercings and tattoos appeal to me now, not just as an act of rebellion. It's an act of belonging. It's an initiation rite, or a partial substitute for one, since there are no really good one's in this culture. The act of going through something painful can be a powerful tool for growing in strength and confidence as one transitions to a new stage in life. I'm certainly in such a transition right now.


Sara and I are in a really good place right now. I've realized that I don't really need to change the way I relate to her since she has always been my friend first and foremost and still is. And Sara has realized that the primary thing she was ending in our breakup was the use of labels - boyfriend and girlfriend. It's the status of being a couple that we gave up. And, really, I'm happier for it, and we're both healthier for it.

Well, healthier to a degree. I'm still very sick. Not physically, most of the time, but in every other way possible. Since I've begun this journey of healing, I've become very aware of exactly how I medicate and numb myself to protect me from reality. Lately, I've been eating more comfort food, which I don't even want to think about stopping since I'm underweight, but some of the food I eat still doesn't make me feel good afterwards. I rarely drink coffee (only when I go out with friends to a coffee shop like Mokabe's), but I want to cut it out completely. It certainly tastes good, but it makes me feel awful. And I definitely don't want to ever become dependent on that most used and abused drug in the world.

Speaking of coffee, the last day or so, I've been considering a job at a fancy coffee shop close to my neighborhood, called Belas Artes. I'd like to get a job in order to save up some money. I'd like to save up some money in order to travel to Europe with my friend Nathan in January. He's studying in Ireland for a semester, but he's visiting a friend in Bulgaria first and then has a month to get from one corner of Europe to the other, seeing as much of Europe in the meantime as possible. And I want to make that journey with him. I'm also planning to travel around to visit friends at college in Chicago and at Truman. And I'd like to go back up to Dancing Rabbit sometime this fall, maybe in conjunction with helping with the sorghum harvest at Sandhill Farm. When I'm at home, I'll be helping with house maintenance and renovations, possibly homeschooling/unschooling my brother, and unschooling myself - reading at will and learning some basic self-sufficiency skills. And I'll be continuing to heal. But that's a lifelong process.

Tags:

• collapse
• food
• rewilding
• civilization
• community
• work
• unschooling