Infiltrating the Young

As I have said in previous posts, I often take the university bus from the campus in my town to the campus in the city.  It is literally an uphill journey to the university here in town from where I live; about 1.3 miles.  Needless to say, I never mind coming back from the city and having to walk home, being a downhill journey.  Unfortunately, many times I am late or lose track of time and need to rush to the bus from my apartment, meaning that I spend about 20 minutes on the 30 minute ride to the city, simply wiping sweat from my forehead.  I seem to fit in fairly well, though there's no disguising my balding hairline or the grey creeping into my beard.  But that is overlooked as there are many "non-traditional" students who commute and attend the university.

Technically, I'm not supposed to be hitching this free ride between country and city campuses.  But I DID graduate from this same school in 1995 and feel (rightly or wrongly) that this should allow me the ethical ability to ride any damn university bus any damn time I want.  But this apparent bravado is tempered by the fact that it really was and is a great school and gave me - maybe - more than I paid for, when all things are added up.  The bus drivers never check student ID and are happy to see someone as old as they are riding on a regular basis.  My costume is how I get away with it...barely.

I have my iPod and my backpack.  Except for the fore-mentioned physical traits of elderness (bald and grey-bearded) I really do look like any other modern student.  I wear my grungy jeans, with my low-brand sneakers and shabby shirt--ALL a must for student infiltration.  It is only when I pull out my ancient iPod Shuffle (ca. 2005), a comparably large 2" x 1" x 1/4" monstrosity, with no touch-screen, no album image, etc., that a student might become skeptical of my attendance at this great school.  Hell, I still get carded when buying beer at Hannaford, maybe because, despite the elder look, I wear an iPod and backpack most of the time, and am fortunate enough not to have wrinkles, or crow's feet etc. 

But this is the thing.  Kids (and I can call them that, since most are more than 20 years younger than I) are SO much more accepting and progressive than when my generation went to college, that it is TRULY refreshing.  They are SO savvy with electronic gear that it is like pulling on a sweatshirt or lacing up shoes for them.  EVERY student has a small laptop, iPhone (or equivalent), and mp3/mp4 player.  They all stand at the bus stop with heads bowed in worship to these devices, and I don't blame them.  The mechanisms for study and communication are VASTLY more efficient and appropriate to student life than my generation (their parents) ever could have hoped for.  They still socialize just like we did.  They still like to talk and make plans in person.  But all of this is not the most impressive aspect of this 20-something group.

What impresses me the most about these kids is their high level of moral aptitude.  When waiting on the bus at the city campus, a small, tricked out pick-up truck squealed through the parking lot and raced over to a building on the other side of the lot.  In the old days of my attendance here, everyone would have said, "Yahoo, friggin right!!"  But the males on this bus just shook their heads and mumbled about what an asshole this guy must be.  One guy mentioned how this one driver's arrogance put all the people walking down the line of cars parked, in danger.  And everyone on the bus seemed to agree, to the point of almost applauding.  I was dumbfounded.

And all races and the two sexes, and alternate sexes, have no problem sitting together and being quite civil.  They truly see no differences in equality.  They all consider each other to be happily the same--human beings, just trying to get by in life.  I have been so moved sometimes that I have to look away from how much things have changed.  I don't even think their parents or anyone knows how profound this change has become.

The greatest example of this came one rainy, foggy morning on the ride from my town to the city.  I was sitting in my favorite seat; the one after the rear wheels where the bump of the wheel well rises in front of the seat  I like this spot the most because I can get my knees bent up and relaxed after walking.

As I sat listening to my latest Terence McKenna lecture, in the background I began to pick up the conversation behind me.  Two guys and one woman were engaged in the most progressive philosophical discussion I'd heard in years.  I nonchalantly switched the volume down on my lecture but kept the ear buds in, so that I might listen with immunity.  Over the half-hour drive the conversation ranged from the role of energy use in the country to the expectations of the people in power for the population's acceptance of stupid laws and dangerous policies. 

There was one guy who seemed to be leading the talk.  He went into long 5-minute monologues about how we are misled by the position of people in government to think that they know best.  He steered the discussion toward facts and numbers which showed ecological indifference, drug policy ignorance and economic biases.

I resolved to confront this guy and tell him how much I appreciated his efforts.  But I lost my nerve when the bus stopped.  Or, I just realized that like an observer from the future, with eyes in the past, I should not interfere with such a great process.  I just smiled and walked on to my destination, knowing that the future is safe as long as these great kids keep pressing forward.

Going Home to the Street

I'm gonna try something new and take my laundry down to the laundry mat, via back pack, a little a time.  I just can't stand the idea of hours of sink washing again--despite whatever Zen-like revelation it gave me last time.  I think I found a way to secure an extra duffle bag to my back-pack, so I'm hoping to take a whole load at a time...there are only about four this time.

Tuesday, thanks to my sister's generosity, I was able to borrow her minivan and move most of my stuff to her garage for storage.  I walked to the university bus, then caught a ride into the city, then walked the 4 miles to her house to pick up the van.  I like to measure distances and times.  The measurements were nice and neat that day: It took exactly 30 minutes to get from the city campus to the bridge.  It was exactly 15 minutes to cross the bridge.  Then 15 more minutes to reach her street.  And finally, 15 minutes to get to her house.  Like I said, nice and neat 1.25 hours.  It was a good day for walking, overcast and around 50 degrees.  There was the threat of rain but it never came.

When I drove back to my apartment and parked it was simply a matter of carrying the boxes I had packed a few days before from the kitchen door to the van.  I was surprised to be able to carry my entire library (about 600 books, in 15, 40 lb boxes) and a bunch of other stuff to the van with not a lot of physical strain.  Walking has really provided more strength and stamina than I remember having in the past--even for lifting and carrying.  I still sweat like crazy, but I've always done that.

I got back to my sister's place a couple hours later and did all of that carrying again, this time up a flight of stairs, and in reverse from the van-loading, carefully packing my precious books tightly in the attic of the garage, allowing enough space for a final trip.  At this point it really did look like it was going to rain, so my sister offered to drive me back to the campus in time to catch the next bus back to my town.  Then it was just a one mile walk back to my ever-more-emptied apartment.  Without a good waterproof coat, rain is the enemy of the walker.  I will have some thoughts about weather in a coming post.

I have to be out of this apartment and hitting the streets by the end of next week.  Being homeless for a while (hopefully less than two months) is going to be a great source of material for this blog.  I'm in good condition and have a plan about how to survive.  I didn't plan to write blog posts so frequenlty here, but I wanted to get the ball rolling before I am forced to wait days in between posting. 

I have been on the streets before to some extent and know a few tricks of the trade, so I'm not worried about myself.  I do have two old, sleepy cats though (one with only 3 legs) - my closest companions - and I still don't know what I'm going to do with them.  That will be my priority in the next 10 days; finding them a temporary home.  They will only need that two months worth of fostering, then I can take them back.

I'm starting a new business with a friend of mine, but getting the funding for it (as one might expect) has been a longer process than we had hoped.  However, even if I start making money before I can get a new place, I'll be doing all right.  I will have my mp3 recorder with me and my little digital camera, at least until they are stolen (kidding--kind of).  And I plan to publish occasional videos and/or podcasts on this blog as I journey around Southern Maine.  Since I'll be doing business writing and research at whatever library I happen to be near each day, I should be able to also upload the video and audio through their computers.  We'll see. 

As I've mentioned in past posts, there is a peace of mind that blows through me when IWallk.  Nothing feels more natural and free.  Being inside my mind and outside in nature is very much like being in the same place; even when that outdoor landscape is broken up by asphalt and concrete; even when the sky is cut and sliced by wires and telephone poles; even when it is littered by unthinking people; it is a kind of refuge, a sanctuary...a home.  Is one truly "homeless" if one is out doors?  Such a foreign place to us now.  We've spent the last few hundred thousand years trying to get out of nature and into a "shelter."  Now it seems to me, at least psychologically that "shelters" never really last, not as long as nature's places anyway; the outdoors has become a kind of shelter in itself.

A street is just an artery for human travel in space and time, being the same way in the modern world as our trails and paths were before the 20th. Century.  And they were the same as the trails and paths we used when we were animals living outside...living in our our home.

Indeed, because my heart has been physically broken and then healed again, emotionally I really know now that home is "where the heart is."  I'm not a fanatic about this street life though.  I know it would get old if I end up trapped there.  But I don't see it as a permanent home.  I KNOW I will be back to the indoors soon enough--rejoining what's left of the human exisitence as it is thought of today.  Like anyone else, I like to sleep in a warm bed, with my cats.  Even more, I like companionship and the feeling that there are family members and friends around nearby; that we are all together in one "place." 

I look forward to having my own family once this storm has passed by.  It turns out that this feeling was the illusion of my youth.  But it was just a fantasy, lasting long enough for me to appreciate the ideal of a "home life" (even though it wasn't actually happening) and then grow up to become strong on my own terms; strong enough to live on the streets for awhile if need be, without losing my hope for that same ideal of to actually come true in the future.  As we are beginning to see, perhaps it has been my walking on those same streets for so long that allowed my hope for the future to manifest itself in the first place, preparing me for exile and then for return.

I am definitely being led by Something Greater than myself now.  And it is my decision to surrender to Its Will, to stop fighting against what I know I should be doing.  There are even more profound futures to prepare for.  My one and only goal for the next two years or so, is going to be the discovery of that Plan, and then the following of It - no matter where it leads, no matter what I call my home - each and every day.  Today...that home will be the laundry mat.

Learning a Litter More Each Day

Walking along there are things that I see repeatedly.  Because I am the person who uses the soft shoulder more than anyone else in town, mostly what I see is my own footprints, whether sand, snow or mud.  But I also see trash, litter, detritus.

In telling my friend, AP the other day about the three types of things I see the most: (I) cigarette butts and empty packs, (II) alcohol cans and bottles and (III) junk food wrappers, several things occurred to me.

I just see it as a commentary on the types of people who litter.  Growing up in the 1970's as a preteen, I remember well the Indian standing in front of the trashed landscape with a tear in his eye.  It wasn't too long before people started to address the issue.  In my town there were debates and meetings about the idea of a bottle return law.  Many folks thought it would bankrupt the state.  Others claimed an unrealistically huge infrastructure would have to be set up to handle it all.

Now, despite my complaining about the litter I do encounter, the landscape is very nice, overall.  People don't realize how common it was to simply throw an empty container into the woods back in the 1970's or to toss a napkin out of the window while driving.  You just don't see that any more, except in certain populations apparently.

(I) Even though I'm not pleased about it, I can understand - as a former smoker - that when driving it is just easier and saves the mess in the car, to simply toss the used butt out the window.  Of course a different line is crossed when the empty pack goes out too.  But, what looks like the harmless act of tossing a butt out the car window, belies some pretty ugly statistics.

As someone who dabbles in mathematics, I've tried to determine what the frequency of tossed out butts seems to be.  My typical step is about 30 inches (or 2.5 feet).  Counting buts as I walk and keeping track of how many steps were between, I was ASTOUNDED to get an average in one mile's walk, of 1 butt per 1.5 steps.  And often there were multiple butts together.  The average amount of multi-butts was 3, and they occurred about every 4 steps.  Therefore, in one mile of a rural road, only in the soft shoulder or break-down lane (not in the grass, etc.) the numbers look like this...

1 mile (5280 feet) = 2112 steps

Cigarettes buts (at least one) occurred on average every 1.5 steps = at least 1408 butts.

There were an average of 2 extra buts every 4 steps = an extra 528 butts.

1408 buts + 528 buts = a total of 1936 butts.

That is 1 but every 2.73 feet on average.

If we then multiply that by 2 to account for the other side of the road too, we get 1 butt every 1.37 feet in a mile, or a total of 3872 butts per mile.

If we were to calculate all the cigarette buts from my town to the town where my bank is (5 miles), there would be about 19,360 butts, from 968 packs.  Now, since cigarette butts last from 1-5 years (average 2.5 years) that means that about 387 of those packs were bought within the last 12 months.  So, just over one pack's worth of butts a day are tossed into that 5 mile stretch.  Over 1 billion butts are tossed on the ground each day in America.  Why?

(II) It is even more confusing to figure out what people are thinking when they toss out their McDonald's bag containing empty fries' and burger boxes, plastic ware and cup.  I really don't know.  The paper isn't too bad it might only last about 6-12 months, the plastic would last much, much longer about over 500 years. Is it laziness?  Or, is it an attempt to not clutter up the car?  What is really behind the need to rid one's self of the responsibility of taking care of one's own trash?  Like I say, I don't know.  Maybe someone out there can see an angle I'm not able to see?

(III) The most mysterious of all is the tossing of those returnable bottles and cans.  I pick them up if they're not in too bad shape.  Hell, I'd pick up a nickle if I saw it.  And even more strange is the liquor and wine bottles everywhere.  Anecdotally I can tell you that there are as many of these higher value liquor and wine bottles (@ $0.15/each), if not more, than single soda or beer bottles (@$0.05/each).  The crushed aluminum cans I don't pick up to return, could last 55-200 years (average 127 years), the neglected glass bottle could last 1,000 years or more, and a plastic bottle could last over 500 years.  Again, why is there no thought to this behavior by those who do it? 

And it is a little bit disturbing to think that these were tossed out of cars.  I mean were these folks downing vodka as they drove?  Wine?  Even bottles of beer?  We know they weren't lost out of a pile of returnables on their way to the redemption center.  People who return bottles for cash make damn sure the bottles are well bagged.  You don't go through all the trouble to recycle just to be sloppy about how you transport the bottles and cans.  So they have to be drinking and driving.  Or walking at night drinking (less likely).  I know they aren't walking in the daylight drinking, because I walk everywhere and have not observed such a phenomenon.

Finally, it does appear that it is the people who aren't as concerned about their own health or the health of others who are the ones littering: cigarettes, alcohol and junk food wrappers (once containing high amounts of trans-fat, sugar and salt).  My friend, AP agreed, including that you don't see Whole Foods wrappers on the ground very often, or salad containers.  Amazing what I learn, when I actually pay attention to what I see and put a little care into analyzing it.

IdeoWALLogy - A Response to Private Comments

Before I make my next post I'd like to take some time and discuss comments made to me in private.  I would prefer to see them posted here if anyone thinks of it next time, so that we can discuss them in more depth, together.

First, thank you so much to everyone who has been reading!  It makes me feel good to know that I can blab and even the people who don't like what I have to say still seem to make it through the posts enough to express themselves to me.  It is no fun when it isn't a conversation and when no-one speaks up to object.

Most comments have simply been jokes about how ridiculous it is to call for simplifying life.  Some also like to rub their wasting of resources in my face, like "I'll read your blog tomorrow after I drive my 6 mpg SUV to my brokerage firm, stopping along the way to leave my truck running in the parking lot--taking up two spaces, while I run in to pick up my 20 oz coffee at Dunkin Donuts."  That made me laugh.  And I think I've walked by you a couple times, X...  I know (or at least hope) that you're joking.  I suppose it is naive to think that people will give up their addictions to thoughtlessness and waste (that is: waste for the shear fun of it).  But I'm not really speaking to them anyhow.  Although they could waste a little money in a donation to this site...I mean what could be a better waste to brag about?  But that wouldn't be as fun, because it might actually do some good.

And there may be a bit of a misunderstanding about spending money.  I don't have any issue with someone who...as someone commented last night...goes out "for over-priced drinks...hee, hee, hee."  I do that too, when I'm able to afford it.  The point is, that this person wasn't spending the evening ladling trash from TV into her mind.  It was worth her money (and I agree) to be socializing, listening to music, picking up guys (kidding), dancing...Just having fun with other people in a way that was not dictated by a TV show, a prudish, Victorian Nanny, or some over-bearing partner.  People SHOULD spend a lot of money on the things that bring in new experiences; the real, live "datum of immediate experience" (Aldous Huxley).  THAT is what life is for.  If it makes you happy and is not hurting your over-all finances, your health or anyone elses, who can argue against it?  Very frankly, I think it is healthier than buying another gold ring, or filling up the cart at Walmart with foreign-made, plastic junk, just for the sake of spending the money. 

Other folks let me know that they're already on this simplicity kick, are bucking the system, and need to hold on to every cent, hence their need to apologize to me for not being able to donate.  Well, let me say this:  I'd rather that everyone be on their way to a simpler and more natural life, than to ever give ME any money.  I'm thrilled that they know HOW to keep it.  They are thinking for themselves and my words are simply reinforcement to what they already have a good grasp of.  I want to see people discover what is Real in the world.  If I just wanted money, I sure as hell would not be writing this foolishness...I'd whore myself back out to the financial industry.  It is good money if I don't mind ulcers and heart attacks quite as much as I do.  Walking clears those right up.

I've found that (not-surprisingly) most of the strongest comments are from people with a conservative bent.  I am trying lately to use the word "conventionalist" rather than conservative, since even the real Rush Limbaugh types go around pointing out which of their equally fascist and ignorant fellows isn't "a real conservative."  Frankly, that has really cracked me up lately.  With all these folks eliminating each other from their shared-ideology I'm tempted to think there actually are NO conservatives out there.  But...not THAT tempted...

Before making more posts I want to clarify my position on politics in this blog...I have none, other than my advice to not support the Republicrats--either party.  Libertarian--Great!  Green--Even better!  Whatever steals the fire of the constipated mainstream.  Yes, after leaving the Republican Party myself during the retarded W Presidency, which came after being disgusted by the Clinton abuse of power - realizing they're all the same anyway - I went to the Greens.  But even I admit that the Greens aren't even the lesser of any evils.  Where the courageous Libertarians believe in the decriminalization of cannabis, for example, the soggy Greens don't even have the guts to talk about it!  I figured, perhaps wrongly, that if I'm going to be associated with any "party" I'd rather it be people who love nature (perhaps to death) than people who are actually Republicans hiding in a Libertarian closet.  And I'd join just about any party besides the Democrats who suffer from a terminal lack of organization, a kind of "Republican-envy," something that Obama sure hasn't cleared up by being so "well balanced" that he can't seem to be strong and stick to his original passion for "change" (we're still at war - now on three fronts, the country is still divided, drug policy still remains a travesty, etc.).  I do have hope that a second term will embolden him to become the prophet he was originally puffed up to be.  But, hey, I tend to be overly optimistic.    So again, I have no politics.  That isn't my deal anymore.

The reason why I seem so pinko-leftist sometimes is because when all is balanced out, the so-called "liberals" are simply more likely to foresee that the propagated curves of hyper-conventionality, which they are just as responsible for, are still ruining the economy, the environment and cognitive liberty - the last of the great human rights to be addressed - into the ground.  From what I've seen even these "progressive" folks are still way behind.

People reading this blog who are not familiar with my rants and raves at other blogs and forums may not understand just how much I despise "business as usual."  My title for that is: Addiction to Ideologies.  And it isn't only political views that become ideologies.  Here are a couple paragraphs from a recent post called Freedom from Religious Addiction at my UBPhoria blog...

Each bumper sticker-ideology that we paste on ourselves, precludes the discoveries found in any, so-called, "opposing" ideology. That is, unless you are willing to rip that sticker off, which always leaves a bit of itself behind, and find other ones to cover up those unresolved residues, you only get 50% of the info out there. I don't know about you all, but that is not good enough for me. I want to know it ALL (or as much as possible). My greatest handicap as a human on this planet - I mean ALL of us - is completely set in place, screwed into the concrete floor, by ideological decisions. Each one is a link in the chains that enslave and limit me, DISTRACT ME toward the mind and ideas (addiction, habituation and habits) of MAN.

All the while, I actually want and need to be looking for the mind of GOD: Lordee, I'm so confused!, am I a Buddhist, Islamist, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, Liberal, Conservative, Republican, Democrat, Jungian, Freudian, Emersonian, Jeffersonian, Jesusonian, Green Peace Activist, Red Army Communist, Orange Shirt Rebel, Leftist, Fascist, Socialist, Capitalist, Anarchist, Meat Lover, Vegetarian, Vegan, Thrill-seeker, Intellectual, Pacifist, Hawk, Realist, Cubist, Technologist, Naturalist... no, No, NO! I've taken something from each of these. But I consciously try not to put: ic, ist, ian, ive, at, al on myself. And only now halfway through a typical earth lifetime, do I realize that *I* AM my own ideology and my own church. I'd spent so long searching for what everyone else was, that I didn't get to know myself.

My close friends have seen that I know there is a God.  I don't believe; I know.  They know that my religion is completely personal, as are many of theirs.  I go to the sanctuary of my own mind to worship and pray.  No building is necessary.  And I have the good fortune of a growing community of people who do the same thing as my "church."  No religious organizations or institutions are necessary.  And though this blog won't be discussing religion (that's why I have the other blog), I do want to make the point that organized religion - even personal religion - too, can be an imprisoning ideology, if it is stocked with the concepts of HUMANS and not God.  I still like to go to churches sometimes, but I certainly don't rely on their dogma and human-based morality lessons to center my life around.  Even the people who are devoted to one particular religion rarely PRACTICE those ideals outside of church.  They think somehow that just going to church wipes the rest of their hatred and sin away each week.  I think such is not the case.

My objective in this blog is to be philosophical; not political, not religious; to offer ways of freeing the individual from reliance upon the thoughts and dictates of what we presume are "normal" in the society, and from the limited minds of other people.  We are all human animals.  But unlike other animals we are only half-alive.  And this would be just ducky if we were JUST animals.  But we are also trapped angels--souls grown out of the human experience and the guidance of a Creator (or Source, or even "Mystery" if you like).  We have one foot in heaven and one foot stuck in the mud.   No person knows what is better for you than you do, unless of course you are unwilling to discover who you are and what you need for happiness and satisfaction in your life.  And if that's the case, honestly, you deserve to be only half-alive.

Now some of the smarter people reading this will say, "AHA!  Isn't your desire to offer ideas to get people off of other ideas a hypocrisy, a contradiction?"  Of course not, sillies!  As a great philosopher of the last Century once said, "Just because I tell you why you shouldn't drive, doesn't mean I'm advocating a method of driving." 

I'm just trying to shake myself out of my cultural slumber, and then hoping to show you how you can do it for yourself.  Once you're awake though, I can't direct you.  The whole idea is directing yourself.  Are there things you want in life that you don't have?  If they are material things, then this blog is useless to you.  However, if you are a bit more high-minded and respect yourself a little more than using all of your extra time fulfilling a "thing fetish" of some kind, you may find that simplifying, becoming aware of how society is picking your pockets and giving you back trash in return, thinking for yourself, dropping the need for utilizing other people's ideas and then replacing them with your own, being intentional and artful about the way you live your life - not careless and spiritually ugly, you MIGHT get some of what I have to say. 

Being a former Banking Specialist, Financial Educator and Personal Finance Councilor, I can tell you right now that simplifying your life in similar ways as I will describe here, and seeking non-material things, will AUTOMATICALLY keep more money in your pocket, free you from debt and give you the material options you need to fully realize your non-material goals, no matter what they are.   Simplicity and money, rather than being incompatible, are the answers to spiritual joy and material comfort.  But to achieve this not-so-far-away goal they must be considered in that order: Simplicity leads to money, not the other way around.

Ideally, after all the people who know they could do more with their lives by using less are the only ones left reading this broken little blog, maybe we can eventually WALLK together.  I certainly have no answers besides waking up.  And I'd love to hear the suggestions of other people.  But I will say that at least for this blog I'm not interested in Dr. Dwayne Dyer's system, or what the Buddha has to say, nor Jesus, Mohamed, John Smith, or even Thomas Jefferson.  These are all great people who have made mighty fine suggestions of their own.  And many of these suggestions are worth integrating into our lives.  But I want to know what YOU have discovered FOR YOURSELF.  What is your little piece of novelty?  What do you do to separate yourself from the hyper-conventional habits that society or some human being has demanded that you follow?

The Forgotten Toolbox

As I mentioned in my last post, Introduction - Why IWallk, for the last 18 months I have walked to the neighboring town to visit my bank there about once per week.  This is a 10 mile round-trip walk.  I am a writer and most writers know that having time to think is often more valuable than having time to write.  On a recent walk to that bank I paid extra attention to examining my thought processes and how they have been assisted by simple act of walking itself.

Even as a music writer, I often just compose and arrange music in my head.  All composition takes intention and careful thought.  Over the years I have really gotten good at categorizing and and organizing my thoughts in such a way that I know longer worry about losing the more important or novel ideas that come to mind.  I used to feel that I needed to write them down in order not to lose them.  This has really blossomed though since I have been walking.

For various reasons - many that I hope to talk about more specifically in the future of this blog - I have discovered that if ideas are tagged to images or experiences they can be made recoverable with very little effort.  Walking gives me a chance to summon-up and mentally work on past concepts and themes, whether it is to complete these thoughts or simply add and subtract other ideas them.  I've found that even when I'm listening to lectures and podcasts (I don't listen to music on my walks) I can drift in and out of them to also work on my writing. 

In a way, this makes the memory of ideas even stronger.  As I pass by (1) a certain mailbox, and (2) the lecturer on my iPod says, "...nature loves courage..." AND (3) I am composing some audio to be recorded later, I end up remembering and associating all three very vividly together later on.  I find that when I finally sit down to write an essay and use that quote, "nature loves courage," immediately I recall the mailbox I was passing by when I heard the quote, and the song I was working out a guitar part for, all at once.  Sometimes these memory associations are especially productive because they might even have something to do with each other contextually, within a future creative work of some sort.  But most of the time they are not related in any more significant way than simply having occurred at the same time.

This method of remembering what I'm working on and what I'm learning has become second nature to me now.  Every single day's walk presents an opportunity to remember multiple things at once and to store them as a many-leveled concept; sometimes even being interrelated.  I've noted that this has expanded in recent months, with much repetition and practice, to include the weather on the day of the association, what I was doing that day and where I was going, what I remembered a mile back and what I remembered a mile up ahead, what I bought at the store, etc...  Where, so many times before all this 'working while I'm walking' that I have done in the last 2 years, I would use a single mental tab or marker to recall things later that I was not able to write down, now there are whole networks of inter-associated memories that do the job much more efficiently.

Rather than being confusing to navigate through this web of densified memory, I find myself not even having to try to bring back ideas that I feel are important to utilize in my writing or creative work.  And for some reason - I don't know why - the unimportant things and the things that seemed important but ended up being extra fluff seem to be shaved off, as the more important concepts shove them out of the way.  It is a kind of Darwinian process I guess:  Survival of the significant.  Often it makes me wonder if the human mind is actually set up to be used in this fashion.

That I wasn't able to discover it until I had more walking time, has caused me to think that perhaps the many distractions of secondary processes when driving (someone cuts you off in traffic, the song changes on the radio, someone calls or texts you out of the blue, you realize the tank is getting low, you discover you are doing 50 mph in a 10 mph school zone, with its yellow yield lights suddenly flashing in your face - that kind of thing) prevents any kind of prolonged focus on sets of constructive or creative ideas.  Carried further, it really does appear that the more conventional activities we are compelled to do, whether by our own expectations for ourselves or the expectations of others for us, we have really stamped out the function of personal focus. 

When allowed to simply sit and think, or in my case walk and think, it is easy to see how to stay devoted to personal goals.  They can be work-out and achieved in far less time than all the every-day distractions of modern life seem to allow.  What this tells me is that with all of our modern "conveniences" - machines, multimedia communication systems, prepackaged everything -  comes a LOSS of time to achieve personal goals like...happiness for example.  This deficit of time and continual lack of clarity are setting people back in their personal need to feel satisified with themselves.

I don't think this would only be a revelation to creative people, but to ANYONE who cares about the satisfaction of living a life of better self-knowledge (defining one's self by one's own terms and not by the terms of other people), greater goal attainment, clearer philosophical recognition about what truly is important and pushing those more important things to the top of the priority list.

As things stand now, we are enslaved by our conventions.  We perform as machines programmed by society to fill in gaps; to not ask questions about WHY we seem to be required to do the things we do.   The worst part about all of this is that we accept it for the most part without any further comment.  Yes, at the end of the day we bitch and complain about never getting ahead, but then we get right up the next day and begin walking backward again.  We tell ourselves that there is no choice.  And then we go about attempting to prove that same notion to our own conscience, both individually and collectively.

If we really cared about why the American Dream is dying (or already dead), we would act somehow to change our own directions.  It may be easy for me as a single guy without any children to sit here and pontificate about simplifying life.  But, I have thought of many ways in which I could achieve a similar lifestyle with the assistance of a wife and kids.  We do not have to behave as machines.  We can find a state of lessened anxiety even within this broken socio-economic model.  It simply takes THOUGHT.  Yet, as long as we continue accepting our distractions as being "normal" trying to fit into the gaps, believing that there is nothing we can do about the fact that nearly all of our work pays for the sustenance of the very top of the social pyramid, we will continue to be machines--slaves. 

Even our entertainment is set up to constrict our schedules and distract us from choosing our own time management.  The TV is the best example.  It is a drug that takes up an average of 5.5 hours per person, per day.  And to be able to see the latest episode of your favorite sitcom, you need to mold your life around its schedule.  All the while you are ladeling the advertizing of chintzy crap you don't really need into your mind.

TiVo and similar HD recording systems has helped a bit with this.  The Internet also has freed up TV schedules.  I'm not totally blind to the fun of it all.  My ex-girlfriend and I would look forward to our favorite TV schedule like fiends.  I'm sure she still does that wherever she is.  We unquestioning humans love routines with entertainment because we then have even less to think about.  Work and commuting takes up the daylight hours and TV schedules take up the evening hours.  And personal goals are ever-pushed aside.  Everything is set up so nicely, intentionally making us into thoughtless creatures of habit; playing the game.  And I wouldn't complain at all if the game were truly democratic and fair.  But it is a shell game.  It is fixed and polluted, prejudicial and destructive to human dignity.  The game of capitalist morality is destroying the world and hurting billions of people, including you and I, even thought we can harldy see it anymore and are even less likely to ADMIT it to ourselves.  

I never realized how much more could be done by simply getting rid of the boob tube; something I did about 5 years ago.  I can borrow practically any show at the Library.  Or I could do Pay Per View or Netflix online (though, honestly I never do).  Yes, it takes a few weeks for shows to come out on video, but my need to keep up with the water-cooler talk at work the next day about some hot show that was on the night before is just absolutely ZILCH.  I simply don't care at all.  I have found a better world: The hidden world of the GENUINE.

Society does not care for you and me.  There are systems set up and maintained by powerful people to arrest the guy who breaks into your house or put out fires when they happen, plow roads, deliver mail, etc., but even these institutions are just the bottom rungs of a ladder whose direction of financial transport is heavily weighted toward pulling things up to the top, and only minimally and begrudgingly allows enough bare resources to be thrown back down at the unwashed masses, to keep the utilities of life cranking along...barely.  And we can utterly forget about funding social services for the "lower slave classes."  I mean, after all, what did they ever do for any of us in the "middle slave class," besides take our precious tax money; money that "should" be used instead for multi-billion dollar military campaigns and subsidies for fossil fuel addiction?  Even the upper class is a "slave class."  They may be more physically comfortable and not sleeping in doorways, but they are perhaps the most-damned to being constrained by the capitalist religion. In my view they certainly are the most irresponsible as a group, since they are the ones who most-closely maintain the errors of our Western Civilization.

I choose to walk because I can.  It is one of the few powers I have left, a right that has not been regulated out of my control or torn from my white-knuckled hands.  And to walk has actually opened up a whole other toolbox of forgotten human advantages.  I plan to use every tool in this over-looked box, as I have similarly used them to successfully re-invent my own memory process, enhance my creative ability to work and accomplish my personal goals of understanding who I am and what is REAL in this cartoon reality we have erroneously accepted as human life.

Introduction - Why IWallk

I've started this blog to document my experiences with giving up the complicated life, all the stuff that goes along with it, in favor of a simpler, less cluttered and less expensive existence.  Mostly it is for talking about my adventures walking everywhere I need to go.  But I plan to also associate this change in lifestyle with plenty of social commentary about how the the lives of millions of people could be up-lifted and made happier by implementing similar techniques for themselves.

I gave up my car in 2009 - OK, well, it died and I had it towed away - and after canceling my insurance and beginning to walk around town, I really began to enjoy myself.  Of course it is always healthier to be walking than to be driving.  And this healthier means of transport also leaves no carbon footprint.  I live in a hilly area of Maine and it took a couple of weeks before I stopped running out of breath each day.  I wasn't even walking a very long distance either.  It is about 1 mile into town, another 1/2 mile to the grocery store or the library, and then the same amount back home again. 

At first I only walked when I needed to; maybe 3 times per week.  I bought enough supplies for  2 or three days.  However, as my body got used to the average trip down town, I found myself going more often.  When I went to the store I would buy less, knowing that I could simply go the next day and re-up.  And sometimes this led to simply eating less as a side effect.  Counter-intuitively, exercising has always made me less hungry.  After a while I really began to feel satisfied about not driving any more.  I didn't need to buy auto insurance; didn't need to buy gas; had no need for registration or the required yearly inspection sticker; was not at risk of getting in an accident; was getting exercise; was buying less and eating less food...Hey: win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win!

Several inconveniences did eventually rear up.  First, my bank was in a neighboring town, precisely 5 miles away.  Second, unless I was prepared and organized enough to do my laundry each week, getting whole loans down to the laundry mat was going to be problematic.  And thirdly, because of the relative remoteness of the town I live in, any family gathering meant that I would have to be picked up by some unfortunate soul and then carted to and back from holidays and dinners.

Yet, I resolved to find ways around these problems.  The issue with my bank being so far away, was solved when I simply did the math...

I estimated that I walked an average 18 minute mile.  Therefore, it would only take 1.5 hours to get to the bank and 1.5 hours to get back again.  The problem wasn't exertion anymore, because I felt quite comfortable just walking indefinitely.  I figured I could leave at 9:00 am and be back in time for lunch at 12:00 pm, with a stop at the supermarket along the way. 

When I was ready I went ahead and did it.  The timing was well-calculated and besides spending a few extra minutes at the store, I was right on schedule.  It was a bit more taxing then I had expected.  Three hours of continuous walking is a LONG time.  But with my iPod and a bunch of podcasts loaded and ready to hear, the trip was quite bearable, even satisfying.  That first bank trip was in the summer.  Fortunately I live in a college town.  And there is a university bus that runs from my town  into the city, to the other campus, where another branch of my bank is located.  During the school year my pilgrimage is greatly shortened by hopping this bus to the city, walking only a 1/2 mile to the city branch of my bank and then heading back to catch the bus back to my town.  All in all, shaving 6 miles off my banking journey.

Laundry was a bigger problem.  For a while I borrowed a relative's car to do the wash and dry.  But circumstances did not allow this any more at a certain point.  Fed up with having dirty clothes piling up in my bedroom, I resolved to go "old school" and bought a container of Tide.  I brought it home and spent about 8 hours each of three days in a row washing, rinsing and hanging up my laundry all by hand.  It was a JOB, to say the least!  By the time I was done with the equivalent of 12 loads of laundry, despite being quite proud of myself for having temporarily solved my laundry issue, my hands were worn down by about three layers of skin.  They were so sore I couldn't even play guitar for about a week after.  I had worn off my calluses.  Admittedly, I also missed the soft feel that a hot dryer can give clothes too.  They were a bit stiff.  But they were clean and I didn't need to take them anywhere.

Visiting family is something I'm still working on.  During the school year it isn't a problem as long as it isn't on a Sunday.  I can just take the bus, even on a Saturday into the city and then take other buses or simply walk to my sister's house (the center of most activity now, since she has the kids).

Complicating all of this is my financial situation.  I finally have gotten a job, but I was without one for 18 months.  My savings ran out quickly and despite my efforts at trying to start a business, and relying on donations from my various blogs, the money just hasn't been there.  When I am financially back on the feet again, I plan to make a 1-3-day car rental part of each month.  It will cost about $50-100 per month.  But still that is considerable less than the $300+ per month I had been spending on my car when I owned one.  I might not even need it each month.  So if I could do 1 rental period every 2 months I'd being spending even less.

Not having a car is not only possible, but satisfying, healthy and good for the environment, but also a great way to save money.  I don't see any reason to ever buy another car.  There are challenges involved with this kind of lifestyle, but I really have found it to be enjoyable and less stressful.

One thing I did not anticipate but am exceedingly thankful for discovering is just how good I feel when I walk now.  I really feel better while I'm walking than at any other time of the day.  And now I walk every single day, getting in about 20-30 miles per week, or just about 7.5 hours.  That is not a lot of time over-all and allows me to do all the things I would have done in a car.  Specifically, I used to have to sit for long periods in traffic, averaging about 1.5 hours per day 5 days per week.  That is 6 hours.  Then tack on another hour or so on the weekends and it comes up about even with my current walking time.  Of course, as I said, the cost was outrageous compared to my travel expenses now, being $0.00.

All of this walking, and the many hours it has allowed me to think (something I've found more precious than any amount of money), has led me to appreciate the fact that we all do expensive and wasteful activities simply because we think they are the only way to live.  And the fact that we are pressured into mindlessly doing these things by a culture that thinks nothing of the waste it involves, until it has already become waste, rather than anticipating it and thus trying to avoid that waste, is a birthmark of a First World civilization.  It is one that is ruining the environment, squandering fossil fuels, feeding an already bloated insurance industry (auto and health--because of accidents), stealing time away from our experiences with friends and family, and making us lazy.  Factor these things into a more global context and 1 US commuter is using about 800-1000 times more of the world's resources than a Third World person does.  They walk.  They ride bikes.  They HAVE to recycle and reuse, because we've taken all the extra out of their hands, mouths and gas tanks.

As we struggle to reform our capitalistic "American Dream" (whatever that is defined as now, so late in the game), we are really feeling the effects of our own wasteful largess.  As a former personal financial educator I knew the greatest secret of all: Spending LESS money is even better than making MORE money.  You don't have to work more hours.  You have more time for leisure, savings and recreation.  You don't need a promotion.  You have less THINGS to worry about maintaining.

Being a teen in the 1980's I watched the adults in my life grab, scratch, wrestle and steal as much as they could simply to APPEAR to have more.  In the 1990's even I was lured into the fantasy of wanting more and more stuff; believing that true happiness was always one more purchase away.  Meanwhile, people became greedy beyond what had been seen in earlier years last Century.  By midway through the first decade of this new Century, people were choking on over-extended credit.  The US economy (and many other countries) became entirely debt based, with the Federal Reserve literally "creating" more money out of thin air, when circumstances required it.  The national debt blew up like a mega-blimp, real estate lending became the foundation for even more excess, and we all saw what the result of that fat-glory ended up being. 

Now with government bail-outs, saving the very richest 1% of us all, no lesson has been learned at the top of the food chain.  Capitalism has been given a false second chance.  It has been given a new opportunity for the richest to use us all over again to even further enrich themselves; again, having learned no lesson.  Meanwhile we who have struggled to find work; who have no health insurance; who have no savings for retirement, are - by necessity - re-working the philosophies of our lives. 

We are doing more with less.  We are cutting off the fat and genuinely appreciating that we never needed it in the first place.  Upon just a little open-minded reflection it has become starkly evident that not everyone in the world is going to be able to have three car garages, jet ski's, two SUV's, health club memberships, prepaid college financing for their children, steak five times a week, 56" plasma televisions in each room, satellite dishes, vacation time-shares, etc... 

This blog will be dedicated to the new and growing paradigm of the trans-class (my term for the segment of the population that is defining itself outside of the peer-pressure world-view of American conventionality; one that assumed there needs to be a lower, middle and upper class).  As things stand now, we are a largely silent segment of the population.  But we are not an inactive one.  When, and especially because, we WILL have the resources to really change things, I believe we will show restraint and move past the "dying with the most toys" mentality of so-called, "success."

I think we who actually CARE about humanity (keeping in mind that 30,000 children die every single day from starvation all across the planet) have an innovative and far-seeing perspective born of the hardship and disappointment of a culture that has become top-heavy with its own hubris, fat and clogged up with it's ideal vision of itself, and unworkable as a model for most of the rest of the world.  And the rest of the world needs to refine its ideals, deflecting them away from the American capitalist model.  We in America are doubly handicapped by a political system that is backwards and contentious, unable to function because of bitter partisan rhetoric and filled with ideologues on all sides; folks who care nothing for progress and live by election year motivation exclusively.  We are certainly being led by the least among us.

My call for action - and hopefully the example of how I plan to live simply but comfortably outside the standard social model - is to simply stop supporting the system.  Stop doing what is expected of you and start doing the things that help you rise above thoughtlessness in your life.  Support the local community.  Support your friends and family.  Think for yourself ALWAYS, without fail.  Do not give weight to any ideology.  Pull the carpet out from beneath the conventionalists by simply not participating in the activities that are hurting the planet and enriching a small elite who would never give you anything back anyway.

Thus starts my on-going rant and the defining even for myself of what is REAL and HEALTHFUL in this world of greedy grabbing and back stabbing.  Yet, I intend it to be an optimistic review and a helpful guide to freedom from a culture weighed down by waste and inconsistency.  We can do it!  We CAN bring a new future to a worn out world.  It can't be top-down though.  We must be the examples.  We must LIVE smartly, so that we stop looting the future from our children and grandchildren and instead leave them the gift of a clean, well-managed and happier world.  Don't they deserve at least that much?