I'm becoming a little anxious that I might come home to an intervention. That's not really true, but there's a good chance I have your attention now.
The problem, or more accurately, MY problem, is that right now I get to spend small amounts of time on many different projects, and junk is starting to pile up. It's not like an episode of 'Hoarders' yet (in the whole house) but it's definitely getting to the point where my workspaces have to be shimmied through, rather than walked across.
It's the weather. You may have noticed that I rant about the weather a lot. I'm not really complaining right now, it's just a fact... the weather is messing up my mojo. Nights are still getting low 20's or below, so every morning the animals need fresh water. I have waterers that take care of this for me in the summer, but I don't have de-icers for them yet.
It's still too cold to do much else that early in the morning, unless I put on some extra clothes that I'll take back off in a couple hours, so that's when I do my inside work. Pay the bills, make a loose schedule, feed the heaters, turn on the plant lights, feed myself if it's going to be a big day, order whatever parts I learned I need the day before, check the email... you know, life.
By 10am temps hit the mid to upper 20's which is a little more bearable for me with just one layer of long johns, which I'll keep on all day. The problem lately is that there's snow everywhere, and it's been getting warm enough for it to melt, and sometimes it'll rain a bit during the day just for laughs. So after a couple of hours crawling around in the snow while it's drizzling rain, I need to either come in and dry out or change my clothes later.
I hate having to change work clothes in the middle of the day. I don't hate much, but I hate that. So I come inside, hang the outer clothes by the heater, and get just partially involved in an indoor task. An hour later, I'm back out the door to get soaked some more. Wash, rinse, repeat. <-- come on, that was funny.
What does that have to do with living free? I'll tell you this time, and not just say 'nothing at all' and continue on, like I was waving goodbye with my middle finger.
I think most people have strange ideas about freedom and rights. To me, freedom is independence, and rights are things nobody can take from you. In this view, very few people have any freedom, and nobody really has any rights.
When I say independence, I mean self-reliance. If you are dependent on others, you are not free. Since I was about 20 years old, my main goal in life has been to acquire the skills and tools I need to provide everything I want for myself. This is a bit easier for me than most people, because I don't want as many things as most people. I am still a consumer, for sure. Did you hear me say I was getting buried in junk? I am surrounded by gadgets and gizmos in various states of usability, as well as repair parts for some of the less usable gadgets. In fact, that reminds me, I finally got enough pictures of the snowblower to do a post about fixing that up.
The difference between my consumption and that of most people, is that every thing I own is either a tool to reduce my reliance on others, or a tool to provide my own entertainment. Almost all of these things also double as possible income sources. To me, this gives me more freedom.
Of course, true freedom isn't things, it's a mindset. People these days aren't enslaved with shackles, they're enslaved with ideas. Americans think they're 'free' because they can pay their bills and buy their kids cell phones, but if their only source of income is a single skill set and a single employer, then that freedom has a single point of failure. People think they're free because they're not incarcerated, but are just as surely locked into their routines as if they were cages of razor wire.
Now you know I'm full of shit. You've heard me gripe about work, and in this very post I'm griping about my routine, so what is this elitist hypocritical BS I'm spewing? Well I'll tell you that too, because my typing skills are really coming back to me.
The subtle difference, that for me is wider than the ideological differences between sheep and wolves, is that I chose my routines, and I mean that in a way that people find hard to understand. For example, if I decide I'm sick of paying my electric bill, I'll stop. I can make my own electricity. It'll take me a little more work, it'll make a little more noise (until I get solar, hopefully this year), and I'll have to change my usage a little. I'm paying the electric company for the convenience of their service, not because I need it to live the way I want. Same with my job. I LOVE my job, and the things I've been able to do with the money I make at it, but I could walk away from it tomorrow and NEVER stress about whether or not I can pay my bills. I have a wide skill set, a solid work history, and experience in 3 fields that there will be hiring until we're replaced by robots: food service, agriculture, and construction. I also have the tools and experience to start my own business in any of these fields, and a good network of past employers and coworkers who would be eager to help me succeed.
Does that kind of security sound like a dream come true? Wanna know the secret?
Understand what you want, and persevere in that goal.
I say understand what you want rather than know what you want, because knowing what you want is little more than a good start. You have to understand it to know how to get it, how to keep it, and whether or not that will really be worth it to you. Basically, you have to understand something to even really know if you actually want it.
I take this approach to everything I want. If I want a phone, I want to know how easy it is to repair, if it can be configured to other forms of transmission if cell towers fail, if I can connect it to my other media without the internet, if the GPS can be disabled... you get the picture. If I had the free time and resources, I'd be bribing engineers for specs over a $40 LG most people would consider too cheap to buy for the children, just so I won't have to go through the trouble of learning all that about another phone.
TMI? Did you see 'bad-advice' in the tags? Ecency says this is already a 10 minute read, and I feel like I just got started.
What I really meant to say was, be aware of what you're doing with your life, and why you're doing it. I'm certainly not saying you should live like I do, I have a string of exes who assure me through their actions that my particular life goals, upon close examination, are not for everyone. If you want to work in a factory and live in the suburbs, go get it, but stay up on the company news. Know where the other nice factories in the suburbs are hiring. Maybe learn some Chinese in your free time, they have all the factories and suburbs these days.
The first sentence of anything written to be read by others should engage the reader's attention. I know that the first sentence of this post will not have done a good job of that for most people, but I find all you wonderful bees to be more attentive than the general population, so I think I'll get away with it. This used to be the way this post started, but since I recognized that I'm already doing a piss-poor job, I'm going to rewrite the beginning, and let this paragraph fall where it may.
'But Eric, what if what I want is to NOT understand anything?'
I wish you luck, and I recommend alcohol and cable TV.
I'm pretty sure nobody was asking that. If you're still reading at this point, you're most likely asking 'Does this guy ever shut the fuck up?'
I do, sometimes.
But before I do, I wanna give a shout out to 
Do you think I'm nuts for supporting a post that's past its payout? Read the post. If you don't agree I'm doing a public service, I'll apologize for wasting your time.