Power and Illusions
March 9, 2023 8:37pm
We were without power for 48 hours last week. A storm rolled through with winds of about 40mph and gusts that probably reached 70. We lost power at about 4:30pm on Friday and were hopeful it would come back on shortly.
The next morning, it was clear that we could be powerless for days.
We had a period of several years when we lost power three times – twice due to the remnants of hurricanes blowing through and once because of an ice storm. Because of those events, I decided to purchase a generator and wire the house so I could feed the main panel. I ran a 50A circuit to the back deck which is adjacent to the carport where I could run the generator. We got lucky and found a 7000W generator at an estate sale; it had never been used. This generator was still on a pallet unassembled, (wheels, handles) still in plastic, and had never even had oil or gas in the engine! It sat in our garage like that for a couple years, then I finally put it all together but I still didn’t even add the oil that had shipped with it. Years later, we still had not lost power for more than a few minutes at a time, but I went ahead and added the oil and made sure i knew how to start and run it.
Fast forward another year – to now. We had gone about 16 hours without power. I decided it was time! I rolled the generator out, hooked up the heavy RV extension cords, gassed it up and pulled the cord twice. It started right up and ran almost continually for the next 32 hours. Everything worked flawlessly!
It is good when preparation finally pays off.
11:31pm
Sometimes I come to the end of this process…. you know – the questions, the doubt. I begin to shut down for lack of resolution. But there is no end – just a pause until inactivity leads to a return of some sensitivity and the pain of life and the irony come flooding back like a tide, rising, rising and drowning the illusions, the routine of illusions that we think make up our lives.
All is so simple and so short and then – nothing.
Populations and Change
March 19, 2023 6:58pm
Indications are that young people have less sex than in previous years. Projections show that the global population will decline if trends continue. A video covering the population of our largest cities since 3500BC confirms that the one constant is…. change. So, what conclusions can we draw? Be prepared. Take care of yourself and your family. Recognize that you control very little. Be ready to change with the times. You have no choice.
Troubles Unceasing
March 22, 2023 8:13am
Writing very little because everything has been said – multiple times.
Trump is on the verge of indictment. I wonder if the country ever felt this polarized, but this is present bias – consider the civil war. So, passions flare, troubles are unceasing, factions align but in anticipation of …. what? Who can know; there are infinite possible scenarios – with many variables.
Here’s what’s in play right now:
- Bank failures
- Trump indictment
- January 6 “insurrection”
- Biden – accusation of corruption
- Inflation
- FED raising rates.
- Ukraine
- The whole Covid backstory
- BLM, California reparations, crime, trans/gay/gender agenda
- Possibility of digital currencies.
What can possibly go wrong?
The Path of Decay
March 28, 2023 9:19am
None can truly know another’s mind or how they perceive the universe. I see reality through my own particular filters which lead me to focus on the end game. So, every vision of beauty is but a brief interlude on the path of decay. In the end, everything bows to entropy and chaos is the final destination of matter.
Now, this may seem like a horrible way to experience life but it is more like background noise for me. I do not live in a constant state of despair, rather this attitude lies just below the surface, influencing every experience and interaction.
I dwell sometimes on my personal failures, my personal flaws but who can say they made it through this unscathed? We do the best we can committing many sins of omission and commission along the way. Could a near perfect life even be lived? I squandered what little ability I ever had, and now at 67, I sit and wonder why. If I had not wasted, it…. what slightly better level of mediocrity would have been possible? And, in keeping with earlier sentiments, even if I had reached some pinnacle, what difference would it make in the 7th iteration of the universe 100 quadrillion Earth years from now? All the successes and failures, all the beauty and the ugliness of all those lost iterations – they’re not even memories of faded dreams. They never existed.
“The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation….” George Bernard Shaw.