Lately, I’ve become really fascinated in paranoia. In part because they warn you that can be the result of a bad high from cannabis but also because I’ve started to wonder and think more about my own fears in my life – the catastrophic mind loop – I sometimes get myself into. If anything, smoking pot has made me less paranoid, but catastrophizing is nothing new in my life.
I listen to old Joan Baez records! I sometimes hang out with old Weather Underground members (who had real reasons to fear the FBI at least decades ago before they turned gray and lost their teeth) !
The news media loves to warn you of all the dangers out there in the world. They show the worse of the worse, people who are hit by the city bus while crossing street to get a cup of coffee, or those murdered with a steak knife after they leave the bar after a few drinks. The media loves to make monsters out of mundane, find villains in every corner. Don’t forget the corporate executive who murdered their secretary with a steak knife. They don’t want to necessarily want to think your the monster or villain – that would be bad for advertising but they sure want you to be afraid of the other – usually colored or poor.
Truth is I don’t know if I am that different then other. I might not be colored or poor but I’m not that many steps away from either status. I don’t know I would decide if I was in Hitler’s shoes. Would I be the intensely moral person that Hitler was not? Could, despite my caution, be struck by extreme misfortune that can impact even the most successful and those who did everything right except for that one moment of indiscretion? What should I even be afraid of?
Maybe if you can mentally separate yourself from the other – the colored and poor – and go through life believing your not one step away form them, you could live a life of bliss until your crushed by that city bus. But I’m not so sure. While I doubt the police or other societal have time or desire to entrap and imprison me, that risk is not zero. After all, many institutions don’t like unconventional thinkers. But outside of my blog, I rarely talk or express my opinions that I do here. And it’s not like my attacks on institutions are specific or local, so it’s unlikely most will take them personally. I mean how much time do the Guilderland cops have to monitor me after attending a protest or two against a shopping center construction in the Albany Pine Bush four years ago now? Or recording audio of endangered bats in a darkened mall parking lot during a pandemic?
I could lose my job, my apartment, my truck, any of my material possessions and loved ones, and those would be set backs. The market could decline. But on the other hand, I’ve worked hard to build assets up in many different pots of money, and that’s a bit of freedom if other things in floor drop out. Most people fail when they have only one leg on stool, but if you have back ups, one failure isn’t as critical. Still I have my own fears, as I would hate to give up so much I’ve worked hard for over the years. And I am mostly well behaved so most people just ignore me and go on my way.
I can imagine that smoking pot would be a lot more paranoia inducing if you listened to Joan Baez’s Prison Trilogy. Or smoking pot while watching the news, rather then around the campfire or next to a babbling brook in the wilderness. But I enjoy the sparkles of the fire and fluttering of the leaves, a care-free few moments away from the Prison Trilogy. It’s a good record some 52 years later, but maybe not the sound track for a good life.
Ultimately, when the psychiatrists talk about paranoia, they aren’t talking about caring about social justice or even catastrophizing. There are people who believe absurd conspiracy theories and fears that don’t have any base in reality. The people who are on street corner shouting about Trilateral Commission or how the 2020 Election was stolen by 2,000 ballot mules. Things that are truly bizarre, rather then some ordinary screw up that can happen to the best of us, and can be very harmful one’s life if one doesn’t have a plan B.
The advertisers be like – you need a car sir – how about a used Nissan Sedan with a CVT transmission? You can’t go wrong there, right? I mean there is a good chance it will make it off the lot before the tranny blows. I do get so triggered by the Internet advertisements which think they know what I want based on what I might have glanced at but are so far from the truth. I simply do not want some 20-year old Honda to drive to the mall every day, while I deliver pizzas out the back. I am so far from my High School days.
Maybe I was so ticked off about reading another book praising the frugal virtues of buying a used car, not that it appears to save much money unless you buy that 20-year old Honda. Really the prophets of the Used Car market are so sure of the wonders of their products, but have you looked at Used Car prices these days? Maybe you save $5,000 or $10,000 if even that by buying used compared to new. Not imaginary money, but with the cost of cars these days, you’re likely buying someone else’s lemon and taking a massive gamble to save a few bucks on what is going to be major purchase regardless. To be clear, I would prefer used, but not somebody else’s $50,000 junker. Used might be great, but this is the rig I’ll likely be using for traveling and through my early retirement, so I want to get the right truck, not the cheapest 20-year old Honda Civic on the lot.
Honestly, I like not owning a car right now. Fuck the auto industry. While I mourn the loss of Big Red, simply not owning a car doesn’t feel like that much of a loss to me. I keep hearing from people, oh I’m so sorry to you had to give up owning a car. How are you going to get around town? You are a very sad, sad person without a car. A looser! A failure, taking the bus with the colored and poor! But I’m willing to take my time, to build the rig I want, and spend the money on the truck I want. But advertisers really get my goat, especially after reading the book I just did praising used cars, preferably really cheap used cars. I get it’s just an algorithm, they can’t understand human complexity or my thought processes but go by whatever I hovered my mouse over or watched a Youtube video on. People say my heart is set on buying a new long-bed regular cab SuperDuty but the high cost, fuel economy, still give me pause. Almost impossible to find that used. I don’t know, maybe I will ultimately buy the Toyota Taco truck with the off-road package. But used is so great! I ask, then why are people selling their cars now if they aren’t junk? Maybe dealer loaner cars are fine, but I also don’t really want the vehicle everybody else has rejected as their garbage, just so save a few thousand bucks.
I did my grocery shopping with my bike mid-day. Bike shopping forces me to buy less, and requires no gas. Grocery shopping was fine, I didn’t need a lot of stuff because I had stocked up so much but I got things like eggs and additional frozen fruits and vegetables. Hannaford on the weekends with the bike is how I plan to do most of my shopping for now. Trying buy healthy, long lasting things with as little packaging as possible as I don’t have trash service and it’s more difficult to get to the store, especially mid-week.
Afterwards, rode out to Five Rivers to just see Meads’ cows. They have a big bonfire going on the farm burning brush and wooded debris. Not as cold at Five Rivers as on Friday, but it was kind of gray and dull, and I wanted to get home fairly early so I could go to the library. It’s good to get out and not spend a lot of money. I just wanted to ride more after shopping, see the country, before I’m busy with work. Doesn’t look good for riding until Thursday, and even then I’m not sure if the bike path will be clear, and it will be a Corning Hill ride in.
Then I went down to the library to kill time on the wi-fi with my laptop. It’s rare I have my computer home on the weekend, but I wasn’t sure if I would need it for work. The library is obnoxious with all the noise, so many people coughing, eating noisy bags of chips, drinking water bottles like a cow might out of their drinking trough. Working on my laptop at the library felt like one big coughing, slurping, crumbling paper session. People are so rude and noisy at the library. Maybe there is a reason I don’t normally have my computer at home and rarely go to the library anymore..
I keep studying and learning about the automobile industry and pickup trucks, and I realized how much of it about baffling people with their bullshit. It’s like the investing and markets – businesses want to sell you complexity and work numbers – but what you really should care about is simple, understandable basics.
It’s tough. People have all kinds of crazy things and add-on you are trying to be sold, but what matters is the simplest of numbers not the everything that goes on behind the scenes. If it works, and works well, that’s ultimately what matters.
I have never particularly liked the long holiday weekends during the winter away from work. Be it the Christmas Holiday, New Years Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, the weather is rarely nice out but instead winter conditions dominate – often deep snow, icy roads, cold, blustery weather. What seems like a free bonus from work, namely holiday time which you don’t have to charge against your Vacation or Personal Time, really is a bit of a drag as it’s hard to get away and spend time in wilderness without embracing the cold.
In many years I try to pick up a new skill like learning a new programming language, redesigning my blog, electronics or other activities. Or I spend it reading and learning about a new topic, something that is all the more easy to do when so many free library resources are out there for use. But still it’s a drag, as unless summer holidays, it’s not easy to get out of town into the remote country, be laying in the hammock, hiking, bike riding and seeing new places. It seems so stuck back at home. And really kind of a boring waste of time, trying to stay warm while passing the time until spring time.
And I’m like will it jack up gas prices to the nth degree by March so I can score a deal on 2025 or 2026 Superduty gasser because nobody who doesn’t suffer from extreme mental illness is going to be buying a big-block engine when gas is $7 a gallon?
Maybe the older and older I get the less I care about things that aren’t directly related to my own interest. ⛽ But what happens overseas is so far away and truck prices and fuel prices are what really matters to me in my advanced age. 👴🏻 I can’t see much of a consequence one way or another, except my more security to walk through at the Plaza. 👮 Maybe fewer homeless people to harass me as I get my steps in. 👣 Gotta love the Trumpster, although I still am inclined to believe that he won’t get us into a lengthy entanglement with Venezuela though sometimes when you hop in quick sand it’s hard to get out. ⛳ The President is such a moron and a cheat, but I’ll give it to him, he’s gotten himself out of a lot of tough situations by being a blowhard and just dumb luck. ✊
I got to stop reading Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson, 📚 it’s really coloring my view of things these days in the world of Trumpster where everything is fake news and weed is legal and guns are banned at least in New York. And learning the ins-and-outs of auto dealer scams, and how to score a big-assed long-bed gasser pickup, without getting the cops called on me at too many dealerships. 🚘 Well maybe if I ride my bike, I can avoid the cops, or just agree to peacefully leave without driving a SuperDuty truck out of the lot. Honestly, I want to take my time, and I know dealers need to make the deal and will tell me they’ll sell my dream truck from 2025 the next day if I don’t buy now at the inflated price, even though it’s been sitting on the lot for year and half rotting and rusting in the sun and salt. And there are I don’t know, 50 or 100 Ford Dealers within 150 miles of Albany, all of which have at least some SuperDuty trucks in the style I want. 💵 It’s not like they don’t make a shit ton of them and they don’t sell well so dealers tend to hold on them for a while, because Ford makes them take them whether they want them or not.
But maybe I don’t care much about gas prices ⛽ as I’m surrendering my plates tomorrow at DMV and won’t any longer be a driver. 🛒 Today I am going to ride down to Hannaford in a bit and a few supplies though my pantry is well stocked and I want to keep it that way, as it will be a pain to get groceries mid-week with the nights cold and dark, unless I guess I walk up to the Ghetto Chopper on Delaware in Albany, 🍏 and get things before catching the bus home from there. But that’s kind of a last resort and I figure I can survive on beans, rice, flour and similar things in the mean time. 🥫 Really trying to get away from anything packaged, as not only is it healthy but I don’t have trash service so I have to either dump it in a trash can along the way, ask a friend, orstore it outside until spring time when I have said SuperDuty and a chance to go to the transfer station or have a fire. 🔥 I mean carefully wash out and recycle ♻️ the plastics.
I keep looking at truck slide-in campers 🚚 just like I look at Taco trucks and the alike, so I know my options. It’s interesting to see what’s out there, especially on the used market. I think I still prefer camper shells without all the particle board, though having a shower and indoor toilet in some ways might be nice, though honestly I prefer my bucket shitter – 5 gallon bucket with garbage bag and a toilet seat up top. Does the job, and it’s not like you sit out in the cold for hours with your balls hanging out. 🚽 Bucket are easy to wash with ammonia, bury the shit, the fire takes care of shit-covered garbage bag. And for showering, 🚿 most of the time I’d just rather go for a good swim somewhere, or in winter, who cares, you stink a bit. There are always campgrounds with showers, baby wipes, etc. And I’ve never used a truck stop shower, but I know most of them you can pay like $5 or $10 to use a shower. I did have a solar shower bag but it fell apart after a few years and stunk when it got tossed in the fire. 🔥 Also the think with truck campers is they put a lot of weight high on the axle, and with a big-ass heavy 1-ton truck you’re not likely to shift as much bouncing over the rough country, a camper shell with gear in the bed will still ride a lot better, even with a heavy kayak and several solar panels on the roof. While I don’t plan any real rough off-roading in my new rig, I do want it be able to handle the shit forest service roads I drive, and not to bad that in wind or at high speeds on those Midwest Superhighways next summer.
I would ride to work tomorrow but I want to bring my laptop in, 🖥️ and I don’t want to haul it on my laptop lest it’s increasingly fragile nature break on the inevitable bumps from biking. Then catch the shuttle up to Plaza mid-day, surrender my plates and call the agent and tell him Big Red 🛻 is baked, I mean done, and I want my policy cancelled and remaining value returned to me. Then that chapter is closed, even if I need to remove my gear and equipment from Red and sell him once I get my SuperDuty in th spring time. I mean, I haven’t made up my mind, I could still look more at the Toyota Tacoma or the Ford Ranger, but yeah. 🔎 I am just taking it slow and deciding what is right for me and the adventures I want to take, 🏕️ and not what the frugalists are like with buy that 20-year old Honda Civic, drive to the Maul daily, and the plastic house with the recycling dumpster. 🗑️
