Today’s work is done, things went pretty smoothly. The one problem I’m kicking myself over happened while painting the ceiling spackle. Previously I had painted part of a ceiling with the wrong type of paint, I used primer and now have spackle paint. The miss matched paint meant I had to paint the whole ceiling, I was finished and noticed a spot that could use some more attention. As I rolled the spackle came with it, leaving a more noticeable problem. We’ll do something to fix the hole, what’s frustrating is that I didn’t have to do that last bit, if I had stopped when I said I was finished the problem would have been avoided. There are no free lunches, I’m thankful that so much went so well and if an ugly spot is the price I’ll survive. There are other spots I could nitpick, but I’m learning my lesson and stopping while ahead. What I learned through making art in the past, is the parts the creator focuses on will likely never be thought about by the audience. In the beginning, and I’ve seen others do this, I would show someone my work and they would politely compliment it. Then I was go down the list of what didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to. No one knows the ideal in my head or the process of making it, they only see the reality in front of them and judge on that. Being able to look as if seeing for the first time is a skill I’ve work on, it can only go so far since different people will have different interest. Sharing work with others is helpful because they provide alternative perspectives.
31 January 2024
The work yesterday went well, got some work done today and there’ll be more to do tomorrow. The house is looking good though, so I’m hopefully. I ordered some bees for the Spring, when it comes to buy nature like plants, animals, and insects they’re often pre-ordered and will ship in the Spring. Plants can also ship in the Fall though I don’t know about bees. The shipping dates as far as I know are to be during the milder climates, it’s part of living in the rhythm of nature. In the beginning of this adventure I remember getting frustrated that after I order something it isn’t immediately on its way, or if I waited too lone they simply wouldn’t be for sale until the next year. Now that I understand the way things work it can go with the flow, it helps give me time to rest in the off seasons. Not like I’m resting, but I am indoors for the most part. The lesson I’ve learned from mountain people in the Winter because they can’t go down into the valley where cities are is that they work on intricate goods that are light enough to carry down the mountain for selling in the Spring. I’m not at the point of making fine art again, still I’m staying busy inside. Inside also has a double meaning with me that I work on myself internal mental while during the Spring and Fall I’m being more physical refining my outside. Learning history can provide on multiple levels, individual, cultural, humanity, and there’s always more to find. When watching a movie we do the same thing, super heroes aren’t real yet we can see how their problems relate to our own. The people that lived a thousand years ago had just about all the same problems I do today.
30 January 2024
The baby is at daycare today, so I have a lot of work to do once I finish writing this. Mostly focused on finishing the kitchen renovation. Today is also trash day and I’ve got a nearly empty trash can, there’s plenty of junk in the garage then the long haul down the hill to the sidewalk. My life is still up in the air waiting for paperwork, during this time I’ve been doing a lot of thinking trying to figure out where the world is headed. I know there’s plenty of drama to worry about, but I consider that stuff entertainment if it’s watched through a screen. The real attributes of the world are the words people use, what they spend their money on, and what does leisure look like. The 3,000 year scale interests me more than election cycles. There was a popular video going around of the William Penn statue on top of Philadelphia’s city hall, people were amazed by the detail. I’ve been trying to think what is today’s equivalent to the statue, modern people don’t even believe in great art and it would be hard to get tax payers to finance something purely for aesthetics. The capitalist values capital, what is art worth? Nothing and at the same time is invaluable, that contradiction means 50% of human population is not interested. There are a number of art installations through out Chattanooga that are, I kid you not, metal girders stacked on each other. The girders aren’t arranged in any particular way, they look like piles of debris through out the city. Modern art that “breaks convention” won’t stand the test of time, no one knows what it is because the abstract can’t be named.
29 January 2024
Over the weekend I learned two things, the baby’s sleep regression was aided by laying the baby down with a pacifier. I had been letting her craw because of the trap thinking she knows what’s best for her. The other thing I learned was that my life is a lie, there has been a whole off grid/prepper/self reliant movement building for like the last 20 years, that is really a remnant of the cold war. Humans struggle to comprehend that everything can end at any moment. The brain fixates on something, labels it the solution and a plan is drawn up to help. All that really does help, so I don’t dissuade people from it. I focusing more on the role of trees in my life. We are in a time of change, I think the role of preppers will hit it’s crescendo in five years with lasting effects for another five. Earth will move on, I’m trying to see where that will be. The Earth has been around long before humans and I’m beginning to suspect it might be here after us. For years I’ve said that solar panels don’t provide enough electricity to live off of, people will have to live without temperature control and refrigeration.
26 January 2024
Our warm weather has returned and the pond is running full with all the extra water we’ve gotten. My babies went to the zoo this morning while I was able to get some more work done on the house. Yesterday we got a grout blade for an oscillating tool and today I was able to remove some tiles. Thankfully I found replacement tiles in the garage, but the previous owner did things so sill. Pretty much everything in the house is custom cut, meaning nothing is done in standard practices. When I harp on the necessity of rules, it extends to everything, the government had to force electronics makers to use the same system as a risk prevention. Who knows what sorts of jerry rigging people would set up with hundreds of different outlet shapes. The previous owner didn’t tile the floor completely, even though it would fit flush, instead they cut tiles to line up with cabinets that they built. I only had to remove the cut tiles and it will hopefully be easy to fill in the gap. This morning I also stained some wood, filled some holes, and replaced another light fixture. The old light fixture was missing one of the glass covers for the bulb and it’s cheaper to get a whole new fixture than to replace one piece of glass. Hopefully this marks the last electrical project I have to do, interestingly enough electrical work is what I’m most competent in, it’s just so happens to be one of the more scarier jobs. Electricity is a strange magical force, I’m research how to make electricity and I doubt most people understand it to the level of copper spools and magnets spinning, but even if the process is known, how do magnets work?
25 January 2024
Hopefully I don’t get canceled for saying India has a caste system. I’m not hating on that except to the extent I’m granted by America’s founding fathers to say no one is born above another. There is a necessity for boundaries and those divided must agree with their opposite where the lines are drawn. Recently I was advertised the book Flatland, it’s a medieval book depicting a hierarchy with shapes that the more sides a shape had the higher it is in society. A new side is added for each successful generation and circles were royalty. The book gained significants not because of social commentary, but because the story took place on a 2 dimension plane. The social commentary is also valid as squares don’t mix with triangles and lines need to be screeching for safety. When the lesser shapes start getting big ideas they can stumble into a world not possible for them to understand, the third dimension. Then again the sphere did appear to a square. There needs to be a proving ground that keeps wild ideas from taking over, in capitalism we call it the invisible hand of the market. A person can have the greatest idea ever thought up, but the timing or execution could be wrong leading to a flop. An idea that can’t manifest in the real world is fantasy and telling a fantastic story doesn’t indicate someone will be a good leader. The hero within me is always drawn to the trails of Hercules, even the son of Zeus had to prove himself. Yesterday we went to the mall where I bought a playing card of Disney’s Hercules, I already own an ancient coin minted of Alexander the great with the nemean lion on his head in the style of Hercules. Thousands of years apart we are chasing the same ideals.
24 January 2024
“They lived happily ever after” is the biggest fantasy to children stories, it serves as a way to say the end of the story when in reality happiness is earned everyday. When working to be happy everyday, at what point does it become work at the cost of happiness? These are all words, stop looking for answers in the noises that come out of man’s mouth. Life is to be lived and language is attempting share the experiences along the way. Working to be happy is a way, to reach out and grab happiness, have a cookie, then it’s gone. Do we have another cookie to chase that dragon or stuffer the pain of starvation? If the goal becomes saying no to cookies, then it’s success over suffrage. It’s perspective, the world is mind. People might reject this saying they would never put themselves in such dire straits, but searching for a way to disprove a happy mindset is just that. We’re all in a bubble that makes it hard to see the outside, I don’t know if people can learn on their own or if nature forces new information into our bubble leaving us to grow or shrink back. Progressive overload is the phrase used with weight lifting and it can be done to personality as well. Where one is likely to be stumped in the beginning is figuring out which side is up. The cookie tastes good, but too much is bad, it also doesn’t happen instantly which leaves a disconnect as to what caused the bad. This is where leadership and rules are necessary, it may seem like oppression. Everyone is born a child, not everyone grows up despite what the years may tell them.
23 January 2024
The baby went to daycare today and I was able to catch up on some much needed rest. Everything has basically been a blur for the last week and it will still take a minute for me to get my bearing and figure out what’s happening in life now. There’s a phrase in my head that I’ve been trying to clean up, making it more compact and understandable, since my brain is still tired I’ll write about it now to air out some ideas maybe getting to the desired result. “How can you do something I can’t, without being able to do everything I can do?” First the struggle here is comparing two humans which we should never do because they’re so different, it’s also touching on the fact that humans have facets. The initial question presumes that progress is linear and that there is only one path that everyone must go through to get anywhere. That belief could be a limit to human thinking, we read in a straight line. Imagine a book compiled into an infograph where the words are larger based on their frequency used. The whole book would be visible in one image, but the story would be gone. To answer my question I think the facets help, people are born more like shapeless stones and through life those stones are polished in different ways. Making one side look exquisite might leave the rest neglected, while working on all sides may keep the stone from letting any brilliance shine through. There doesn’t seem to be any right or wrong method, my only guidance to people is that we have to put work into the stone like it or not. And it is a representation of the life we live, so it’s best to find a happy way to work.
22 January 2024
Last week I was wrong when I said the snow storm was almost over for the South, to this day temperatures have yet to go above freezing. My driveway is still frozen and even though we’ve parked at car at the bottom of the hill, walking down is still a dangerous trek. Being locked inside all week has possibly messed up the baby’s sleep cycle, the last two days she hasn’t been sleeping for her lunchtime nap. She goes down like normal then about five minutes later pops up and won’t fall back asleep. Days when the baby doesn’t nap are long, or at least they feel longer because I’ve lost a bit of sanity. Without a nap I have to provide and extra hour or two of entertainment without ever having my normal break, plus the baby is in a state of overstimulation with more energy than she ever has. Needless to say I’m tired, tired of the snow mostly, it has overstayed it’s welcome. This week I’m hoping to get some repairs done on the house, today we’re playing a trip to the hardware store for supplies. My wife has been helpful in researching what needs to be done and what equipment we need, my brain can handle new information right now. In a couple months I’ll be warm and life will be settling down, then my brain and body will recover to their previous state. A couple months ago I was a powerhouse of intellect, learning Mozart and speed reading, that stuff is mostly to keep me sharp during times of peace. Now is chaos and casualties are expected, we’ll be alright and come out on the other side stronger than ever. I have to be thankful for the challenges that allow me to grow.
19 January 2024
I’ve been telling people for years that Winter is coming and do they listen? No, that’s alright I know one can’t prophet to their hometown. From here on I will be responsible for the 3,000 years peace, Leo’s peace. Atlas doesn’t tire from holding the world up, there’s no one else who could do it. Atlas is the one we owe our Earth to. I’ve taken it as a person mission to bring back Pluto as a planet. There is a celebrated birthday of Pluto, the day it was first “discovered”. That does bring to question what they mean by discover and who “they” are, Pluto is a bright thing in the sky, everyone that’s every existed had access to the sky. What angers me about a so called “they” that decided Pluto wasn’t a planet is that it seems impossible to delegate such power. The scientists clearly don’t understand what it means to be a planet, their definition is wrong and they’re imposing it onto me under a declaration that it’s truth. I can look up in the sky and see you’re wrong, Pluto is a planet. I believe it is the ancient Roman name for the god of death/hades, the ancient Greek name being Hades. There is a story of human history woven into the sky that we all share, a conversation with people thousands of years ago, they looked up and wrote down what they saw, what they believed in. Pluto will not leave the pantheon while I defend the gates. By my measurements that should be at least 3,000 years, hopefully after that humanity will have gotten their act together, but it’s hard to know what the world will look like after that long.
Chris' Morning Pages 