I write this post partially to work out for myself (albeit publicly) how to keep my independence in the face of my growing health issues, but also to philosophize on the meaning IWALLK has for me now. Of course there will also be updated pictures from my last visit to the land of SoftAcres.
I have reluctantly decided that I need some kind of vehicle. It might be a small pickup, or maybe a motorcycle. It needs to be reliable, cheap, and hardy. I'd love to have something electric, but that is still in the future I think. For the last week or so, I have been using my neighbor's Toyota Tacoma and have noticed how perfect it would be. As far as I'm concerned, any fossil fueled, motorized form of transport for me (anyone else is welcome to it) is just a dirty wheelchair. Still, a wheelchair can get ya around.
I purchased a motorized bike last summer, but it needs a new drive gear and requires pedaling to get up the large hill leading to my road. Even without the heart pain last summer, it was a real challenge to pedal that bike. It would be a great bike to have intown. But big hills are too much for it--and me.
So-called healthcare is coming soon for me. I am procrastinating a bit with it, because I know that I am going to lose some of my freedom after entering "the system" again. I hate the system. It isn't that I don't appreciate that the money I put into the system in the past should then be available for me when I am disabled, apparently as long as I fight tooth and nail for it. I just don't want to be treated suspiciously, like someone trying to profit off this fucking insane system. That's what they do, assume you are guilty of having needs. I am the result of the system's greed. I won't get into it now, since there is already a lot out there explaining what went wrong in my case. I'm not stupid though. I know that people's eyes glaze over when they start hearing about righteous medical indignation.
On the upside, I should be getting some much needed medication. And if I can figure out a way to not have pain when I walk, I won't focus as much on a vehicle. However, optimism isn't reality. We'll see.
It's weird talking about myself like this. I really don't care about my
self. I care about my
work--what I've done and what I want to do. I'm trying to figure out how to pace myself for the next five to ten years, while still establishing some of the projects I've been planning.
It is so strange to feel significant when I am actually nothing at all. We each wisp through the aether of our existence sticking our arms out to catch something of significance, futilely wanting to call it "magnificence"... or maybe just our fingers, scraping the surface of the material world only to have it slip through.
Have you ever felt the strangeness of spacetime as it took your static life and stretched it out in a dynamic projection? Of course you have. And, like me, you've learned that nobody else gives a shit about your melodramatic existential situation. Yes, I know that applies to all of us.
The hollow promise of holding onto ideals...
Ideals are what young men and women feed upon if they are so inclined. Older folk may adopt them for temporary use. But I've always said that, "If ideals really worked, the outgoing doorknob of a public mens room would be the cleanest thing in town." It is time for me to retire from a few ideals I've held for myself, like walking six miles a day. I can't even walk a quarter mile without pain now. I will have to rely almost entirely on adjusting my diet, where, formerly, walking had kept my weight down.
During the years I was on the road I developed a kind of eating disorder. Whenever I had food I tended to be compelled to eat it all as quickly as possible, not knowing when it would come again, and not being able to haul extra food around with me. The joys of food insecurity! I went through too many four-day stretches of involuntary fasting. But most of the time I could barely afford one or two meals per day. Now that I haven't been walking and have had the temporary use of a vehicle and a cabin (while working for my neighbors), and through my lack of self control - somewhat fueled by depression - I have gained about 15 pounds! This is something I will need to conquer.
Nevertheless, the greatest lesson I ever learned from traveling as I did was how to utilize the sheer will power and determination for completing long walks as a metaphor and mantra for all my subsequent struggles. Getting through this winter has been my longest figurative wallk yet.
For me the term,
IWALLK, is the state of mind settled after a freewill-choice commitment to achieving a personal or life changing goal. It is consciesized as both radical
and 100% achievable--if one is willing to be tenacious enough to follow through on one's commitment; to actually finish the "long distance walk."
It is a fundamental part of my life now. I discovered that in situations of desperation (
needing to succeed), that same
will-choice triggers superconscious assistance. Whether one believes that this assistance is just a form of psychic self-help or, as I do, that it flows from the divine Spark within one's self, those who have made momentous decisions and followed them through to their natural conclusions know what-of I speak.
Many readers have told me as much about your versions, as you wallked beside me from town to town, and imposed similar tests upon your own lives. Having the fortitude to do such things is part of a spiritual lesson on delayed gratification. For me, the IWALLK state of mind, over time, makes the time lag to achievement easier, because I well-know all the psychological stages involved with completing nearly-impossible tasks. For someone who is experienced with having to wrestle with self-defeat and defeating
it, repeatedly, disappointment about the difficult situations life hands him/her can actually become constructive and less daunting than it otherwise would be.
I think the Soul is fashioned with the strong substance of
struggle-through-to-triumph as a glue. Over a lifetime, the Spark teaches the electrochemical mind to tune into more spiritualize circuits as it
will-chooses goals. It moves the seat of consciousness (the human identity) from the animal brain to the semi-spiritual mind of the Soul. The Spark presents the moral options in every situation to the solidifying-Soul's discretion. The Soul is free (because of freewill) to choose whatever it wants. And, to reject an option presented to the consciousness by the Spark is not a sin. The choice to not follow the Spark - which often makes one's life more difficult - is simply how the Soul learns to better handle things in the future. In this way the Soul migrates outward from an inner
potential to an outer
actual. More accurately it slowly supplants all lower forms of energy within a mortal human being. If you can get to the point where people see more of your Soul-self and less of your flesh-self in world, you will indeed be wearing your Soul on the outside.
It may be that someday in the not so distant future people will become so successful at all of this that they begin literally to expend their material selves, thence bursting forth and shining out as mature Souls. I think "shuffling off the mortal coil" is literally possible...without literally dying.
* * * * * * *
I had been staying at the cabin for two weeks, first as a property sitter, then as a kind of staycation (I don't get to go to the Bahamas), but that time was mostly filled with trying to handle a growing depression, during which time I did some plumbing and other work to compensate for being able to stay at the cabin. Now it was time to hike out to the property. I headed to the private road, parking the truck at the end of the muddy, slushy right of way. I was anxious to see what would happen with my heart after not walking into town each day for the last weeks.
I brought my snowshoes and carried them to the point in the field where significant snow still sat...
The field was still snow covered along the pricker-bush edge where I needed to walk.
Along the way I immediately felt the heart pain kick in. I had to stop every three or four minutes to rest. I have to admit though that I got used to it more quickly than I thought I would. It was obvious that I was way of shape. Still, I made it all the way...
First view of the shelter after two weeks away.
Sun exposed areas are melting.
When I opened up the shelter door and stepped down into the tent there was a squishing sound. There weren't pools of water, but the rugs were entirely saturated. Having such a high snowpack over the winter meant that all melting snow and falling rain was gathering in the low areas, passing under the shelter and eventually up through the tarp layers into the tent itself. There is not much I can do about this situation. I will have to wait until the snow is gone to open up the shelter, take everything out, collapse the tent and store it. Only then can I begin to dry out the rugs and other things that have gotten wet. I did try to lessen the problem by shoveling out as much as I could around the shelter...
I shoveled the snow away from the east side of the shelter.
This should help a little.
There were a few other issues I had been anticipating. The solar panel stand was slowly collapsing. I will need to build a new one (which I have lumber for, but never had the chance to construct last fall). The smell of the leaves I had used to insulate the shelter was beginning to take on a sickly fermented tone. It will be nice to get them out of there with everything else. In only a couple more weeks I can do my spring cleaning. I can hardly wait!
