It’s been a chill weekend for me, which is rare. I’m almost always doing something, party event, a trip or a big dinner or something. It feels like it’s been months since I’ve just been able to take a weekend all to myself.
The timing worked out as my roommate has COVID. I think I may have it too, as I felt real tired yesterday and groggy. So it’s good it happened on a weekend I was already looking forward to doing nothing.
I’ve been consuming audio. Funny that self-help and educational audio just wasn’t a thing for me until 2016 when I listened to Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, which opened me up to the whole genre. So interesting that Peterson was the one who brought me into this genre, and despite how mean and nasty he is on Twitter and how much he seems to ignore his own advice in his book, I’ve got this soft spot in my heart for Mr Peterson because at the time, his book was the best book I’d ever read. Then I started reading more self-help and discovered that there is this whole huge genre that I never really knew about of life advice. Now I can probably list dozens of books that, on their individual merit, have helped me far far more than 12 Rules.
Anyway, yesterday I listened to Illusions by Richard Bach on YouTube since somehow it’s not available on Audible. Not sure what’s up with that. But Illusions is a book that a camp counselor read to us when I was a kid on a YMCA camping trip. I remember I thought it was so stupid as a kid at first but then I think the second night of reading, I really got into the book. Then as a teenager I bought it and read it again.
There was a part where it talks about the ethics of being a sadomasochist and how that relates to how you treat each other and there was a part where he talks about how everyone is ultimately out for themselves, even the most kindest and wonderful people are still just doing things for themselves.
It’s a book about freedom, about being yourself, about new ways of looking at the world and life, about breaking free from social expectations.
So much of that book spoke to me again after all these years and I think now that it must have had a real impact on how I view the world.
I just remembered it being a pretty good book. I don’t remember it really shaping the way I look at the world, but it kind of did.
I was feeling like crap this morning but forced myself to get out and go for a walk in South Park. I listened to Bill Hicks Relentless. Bill Hicks is a comedian from the 90’s who… well I love him and hate him. On the one hand, he has some real insightful ideas about life and — well, his whole statement, “We are all of one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.” that line fits so well with what Richard Bach was talking about in Illusions.
But as a high schooler, even as I read that book and was listening to that line over and over in that Tool album, I still didn’t get what it really meant.
But Bill Hicks is also mean and nasty and the older I get the more that bothers me, that I got such a big piece of my world view from someone who was so nasty and angry and mean.
But maybe it was that nastiness that helped me connect with his anti-war, pro-peace stance. Bill Hicks taught me that it was okay to be a pacifist, taught me that I’m not the crazy one for wanting peace and taught me that it’s okay to be angry at the military veterans and supporters who subtly or outright threaten violence against me or people who question the idea that military protects our freedom.
His gays in the military sketch… it’s like it’s so mean and angry, but it’s also true. It’s not the way I would express those feelings, but what he says in that bit is true and it expresses the frustration that people like me have with this overwhelming societal lie that military, war, and violence are ultimately good things… just so long as your tribe is winning.
I’ve been watching this CIA guy on YouTube from Everdayspy.com Andrew Bustamante, he’s got some really insightful stuff to say and speaks really clearly with a lot of really good advice on understanding how people, conversations and the world in general works and I’m gonna keep going back to him I think because there is a lot of value in his content. But there was one video I found disturbing, though it just reinforced my current views–here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttVaJliUgyo&t=615s — here he’s claiming that we actually want cold hearted sociopaths because they get things done–well, you can see the video.
This may be the one thing I’ve seen of his that I legit disagree with. He seems so level headed on so many other issues (I guess there was one he did about hate that I also found creepy in a similar way), but then with this he seems to overlook the serious and obvious consequences of this concept he believes in: what do you do with your sociopaths when they’re not out on your missions? You just let them roam around your society, hurting people. It’s like, this whole idea that violence and cruelty has a place and it’s necessary, they always try to imply that these sociopaths are somehow contained and that they don’t hurt innocents and that’s just not true. It’s just that when they hurt innocent people, they are protected, because they have that hero veteran or police officer tag that makes them seemingly untouchable, that makes everyone who would normally have your back afraid to support you, so you’re terrified to talk about what they’ve done to you.
So anyway, I was on my walk this morning and decided to buy a book, any old book, to listen to and wound up with The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housal and golly gee was it really good. It kept me walking and I got in my 10k steps for the day and then I finally got back to working on my marble run. It’s now rounding the corner and heading partway up the stairs. I don’t know what I can really say about the book though –no, actually, the parts where he talks about recognizing and appreciating the luck factor. You can’t get over confident after a few lucky breaks. you have to hold onto your wealth, can’t get greedy, and it’s like, I think I might actually have COVID because my roommate has it and another roommate has a cough or something and I felt under the weather, but then I forced myself to go on this walk anyway, and the more I walked the better I felt.
So many people say if you feel like shit you need to stay home and relax, but sometimes it’s too much relaxing that is making you feel like shit. Funny there’s times where I’ll go on a hike and the first five minutes are agonizing, like it feels like I won’t make it half a mile, but then five hours later, I’m still marching and I feel like I have more energy than when I started. It’s surprising how many things in life work this way. This was how my walk felt today. Started out feeling mild covid-ish feelings but after 10k steps I felt a whole lot better.
but no, my point about the book was I guess that I need to appreciate how lucky I am to have this immune system and granted, much of my good immune system is due to my choices: I exercise it by getting dirty, exploring nature, avoiding harsh chemicals, eating vegetables, and I only use hand sanitizer in places like hospitals or that once I went on a cruise.
What’s my point? I guess I’m just happy that I can be in a house with an active COVID infection and I don’t even need to worry. Yes, I’m avoiding contact with people. I’m not going out to eat or anything like that, but I just don’t need to worry because I’m just so confident in my immune system.
I did get COVID once a few years ago and it barely affected me. It was less than most of the colds that I’ve had in my life, and speaking of, it feels like it’s been years since I had a cold.
Okay I don’t want to talk about that. It’s good to be thankful but it’s important to even though I’m not editing this I want to make every word count, as much as possible. Everything I say should have value to someone, otherwise, why say it–even if the only one to find value is future me.
Anyway, I also listened to Jonathan Livingston Seagull today, which is another book by Richard Bach, which I actually had never read. Anther one about taking charge of your life, having the courage to be who you want to be, and about how to learn how to do stuff in life and like, how to be successful and to think for yourself. All from the perspective of a literal seagull. Weird but good. Too bad I didn’t read it as a child.
It’s been a good weekend so far. Tomorrow my roommates are bringing home two cats. I think they’ll be a nice addition to the household. Its been fifteen years since I had a cat.
Oh yeah, I also finished a book the other day called Kinky History by Esme Louise James. It was good but nothing really life changing in there. There were a few fun and interesting facts like –no actually I’m not gonna go into that here. It was good but I think I would prefer to–I don’t know, it kind of felt like she was writing it from the perspective of an outsider of the kink community. Maybe I should try to find some good non-fiction like that written by actual kink community leaders.
And then after I finished Jonathan Livingston I got this book called Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg. Only an hour in but so far it’s pretty good. Already it’s mirroring some of the advice that the CIA guy has.
Okay I’m done typing now. Happy New Year in case this is my last entry of the year.