the Billywillies
Micco my fearless protector a Belgian Malinois
Life for me has gotten simple. Taking a leap of faith to pursue a idea – live simply and minimally – is not easy. Moving by yourself even more difficult. Approaching 60 years young you pull muscles, develop blisters on your feet, then scabs form over blisters and there are pains in all kinds of places you have never had pain before. On top of all of this my little dog Autie had a stroke and barely survived. I never realized how much this dog meant to me until I almost lost her.
Autie a blue heeler, who is recovering from a stroke
Autie unconscious in a ice bath after her stroke
But this morning I am sitting on a porch in a trailer park. I have my essentials – banjo, camera and dogs. A pair of hiking boots and tevas, a few wood bowls and hunting knife. No bed just my sleeping bag. My two sellouts are a electronic coffeemaker and the ipad I’m posting this from. I have two oil lamps which I am redoing, this should enable me to use less electricity. The idea establish a cicadian rhythm, awake with the sun and sleep when the sun goes down.
The old trailer I remodeled slowly, replacing the flooring, walls, insulating everything, repainting and adding a deck. Most of the stuff inside is salvaged and recycled.
Very rough and slow carpentry with lots of duct tape.
I tried an old flip phone – the ringer did not work and I don’t have good service, so that didnt work – but no television or cable. News is not something I care to be aware of, if it is even real.
My circle is small, one friend since high school the “Culpster” operates bull doziers and excavators another I call “Bertimus” is semi-retired and helps another friend operate a produce stand. We have been down many roads together and are still standing.
Then a new friend who I call “Kathi Cleaner” – she is a rare find. Its not often you meet and become good friends with someone later in life.
Kathi Tye
Kathi is not to be confused with “Cathy Yoga”. At present I cannot write about that Cathy who is my yoga teacher.
She is German and says “verboten”.
Then there is the “snippet” as my friends call him – Bill. Bill googles his thoughts and reads news all day and sends links to various articles by text and discusses politics. We have known each other since high school. Bill is caught up in the culture wars which is largely responsible for division in the country. I have an older friend, former mayor, who is less technologically savvy like Bill – both named Bill, one Bill one Billy. Lately the two Bills are concerned about whether olympic athletes competing as women have penises. There is alot of ranting about men in women’s restrooms. Which seems odd – they have never seen this by admission. I’m assuming they do not go in women’s restrooms checking the users genitals but use the mens, so these ideas come from things they read on the internet – not personal experience.
For the record I myself don’t check out the genitals of others using restrooms and wonder why Bill and Billy dont seem similiarly concerned that women – God forbid – might be using men’s restrooms! Their fixation and subject of endless texts are news “snippet” links on the rumour of penises in female restrooms. Vaginas in men’s restrooms I suppose is ok.
I just don’t understand it.
If a woman wearing a dress has a penis…and identifies as a woman, when dressed in such manner, this is not something that worries me. But for the two Billys concerned with Willys it causes great consternation.
It is worth a fortune to have peace of mind and be removed from fear of the billywillies. I have no need to know what day it is, no clocks in my home. I figure if it is a true emergency the sheriff or a friend can find me. I learned about this approach Niksen after watching a Southpark episode about how the Dutch avoid stress. Dumbed down it advocates having a simple rich life with few distractions, all I can say is for me it works.
So why all this? I am going to focus on creative work and light. Light as in pertaining photography (painting with light) and how I explore it with watercolors. And a winter reading list (see below).
One of my favorite philosophers, Robert Nozick, says most of us live our lives on auto-pilot, following through the views of ourselves and the aims we acquired early in high school or college, with only minor adjustments. When we do this we find ourselves directed through life by a not fully mature picture of the world [1]. Freud hyperfocuses on this same idea ofchildhood and adolescense defining how we form ideas as adult.
My experiment in simple living is to rethink how decisions about how to live are made. Its not that I dont want to learn about the world but I want to learn about it differently and not be held captive to what I was taught as a child or young student in high school. To quote Nozick “I want to think about living and what is important in life, to clarify my thinking – and also my life”.
Life simplified
Wait almost, the Snippet is back focusing on 4th graders.
- Nozick, Robert. 1989. The Examined Life : Philosophical Meditations. New York: Simon & Schuster..↩