Places — Andy Arthur.org

What is happiness?

Andy | May 15, 2026

You know that’s a really profound question that I really yet to find the answer to. While I didn’t view my dream of what is a good life – the off-grid homestead – as materialistic now I’m coming to the sad realization that it mostly is. Happiness is ultimately not what you buy – be it a big screen TV, pigs and cattle or a tractor with a manure spreader – but your ability to find Zen and meaning in the now.

For too often I’ve been consumed with the thoughts of tomorrow, planning for that house on the hill with that burn barrel out back and cows mooing in the field with the big jacked up truck and four wheelers in the front yard. Maybe not the glamorous homesteads you see in the magazine but some working land. All the thinking of the accrued benefits of hardwork and saving. I was concerned about the memories of the past. But maybe those things don’t matter as much as I used to think they once did.

There is no time but the present. It’s not to say that the past has no impact on the present or that today’s actions won’t impact tomorrow. But in many ways those things are meaningless as the only thing that exists is the present. That said, I still continue to work for the future even while I try to find more of now.

Nearest New York City

Andy | May 15, 2026

Heading to the city? Here is the closest city to every Census Block Group in New York State as measured by st_nearest.

Shunning toilets 🚽

Andy | May 15, 2026

Since the pandemic and even more so in recent years when I’ve learned more about septic systems and sewage treatment plants, I’ve had more and more of a desire to piss on trees and bushes, to crap in buckets and bury the poop in the woods.

I’m not saying there okay systems in urban areas that help protect the public health from dangerous diseases like Cholera and E Coli and protect water quality from excess nitrogen and phosphorus. But the solution seems to often to landfill such substances rather than recover the nutrients.

Maybe it’s just the freedom to pee wherever you want up at camp, up at the wilderness. Flip down the tailgate and pee. Spray urine wherever. Unconcentrated it’s pretty harmless though as noted on the Blue Ridge Parkway, too many people peeing on a tree can burn it.

Outhouses and composting poop outside of the cities makes a lot of sense. While both septic tanks and sewage treatment works biodegrade some of the sludge, a lot of it is lost unless it is collected and spread, a particular concern in sewage treatment plants is pharmaceuticals and long lasting chemicals like PFAS and microplastics.

I get people’s ick factor and concerns on public health but it just seems like such a waste to send it all to the local dumping grounds.