Laurie Ponders Life

I think I hate myself because I’ve gotten into the habit of watching a personal trainer on YouTube who yells and calls his viewers “fatty”, Stefan Molyneux who advises people to “defoo” (remove themselves from their family of origin) and men to avoid being with and having kids with women like or similar to myself, and Tom Lykis who advises men against marrying women like or similar to me. And the thing is, I see myself in their discussions and I know they’re absolutely right.

“Harmon will be sentenced March 20. Her plea deal has two possible punishments: regular probation or deferred adjudication, which often involves fulfilling a requirement, such as treatment or community service. Neither involves prison time.”

No prison for Texas teen who lied about being raped by 3 black men

But remember – #believeallwomen

It must be a scary time to be a man.

I was just watching some video about what might be the actual tree of life or what the tree of life represents as opposed to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, mathematical language, equations, DNA, how and where we’re here, pyramids, vibrational frequency, etc. And I thought about how I’ve always wanted to write, but not JUST write – publish (a) book(s). And why do I still want to do that in the age of technology? Because without physical, tangible, low-tech forms of communication, we will leave behind nothing. Print is important. Without it, if the power grid goes out, if the servers all go down, or when current forms of storage and retrieval are outdated, we will leave nothing behind for later generations to hand down or later species of human beings to find and study. I don’t know why the thought of this stresses me out so much. Or why this video brought me here at this moment. If everyone and everything on earth is taken out by the next big worldwide natural disaster, all knowledge, opinion, speculation, thought, on science, math, music, history, human relations will all be gone and whatever intelligent life form that comes next will have to start from point A and figure everything out all over again.

What’s on my mind? I can’t expose that side of me. It would hurt you to see the do or die of me. Like a still-life, snapshots, stop-motion in strobe lights, blinding flickers of the composure you extol are illuminated from within the chaos, but you still can’t see what hides in the folds of darkness inside my heart before the flash goes off and the shutter closes.

Last year I was about doing things. Trying new things, being more active, going to more events. This year I’m thinking minimalism. I’ve been trying fasting, cutting out, or so far drinking much less, coffee – once or twice a week. I want a more minimalist diet. I have clutter to clean out of my house, mind, and budget. And I’ve been thinking about what I actually need and want, and what’s just excess.

I started thinking about all of this while looking at our bills and budget, and then our checking account showing Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart… Seeing how much of our income (husband’s income coming from Wal-Mart) goes back to Wal-Mart (because of convenience and employee discount). And thinking of why I’m now working full-time at a place I have to justify to myself because of the inner conflict I feel working in an industry I feel is centered around frivolous pursuits of excess in the way of vanity basically to fund our own frivolous pursuits of excess.

There is also the medical side, which at least is surgery and does help people who are injured, but I still feel a lack of purpose and meaning in doing my part which is like playing a tedious game with complicated rules I’m only somewhat familiar with, to try to cut through red tape of insurance companies, which we wouldn’t need in the first place if we took care of ourselves, lived healthy lives and only needed medical services when our bodies are truly broken. Would we spend as much as we currently do on premiums and meeting deductibles, paying co-pays and out-of-pocket maximums if we just ate healthy and stayed fit naturally, and just paid straight out of pocket or in trade for things like surgeries for congenital issues and accidental injuries?

Everything else in so-called “healthcare” is sick care for sicknesses caused by bad shit we put in our bodies and the exercise and sleep we don’t get. Obesity and from that high blood pressure, non-congenital heart, kidney, liver issues… every single thing is caused by the shit we put in our bodies. You are what you eat sure was the truth all along. We humans don’t even know how to feed ourselves anymore. There are a million different books and videos on diet. People argue over whether it matters if we eat vegan or paleo, keto or Whole Foods or crap. You can look up any animal on Wikipedia and find out what they eat. But we don’t even know what humans eat. Our immunity sucks because we’re not able to develop our own immune systems in an oversanitized world that just creates more resistant bugs. That was a tangent. But not really. Everything is interconnected.

Oh, and how many people actually live long enough to fully benefit from everything they contributed to and are entitled to, having been income earners?

Yesterday, I started this outline below. I first called it Money Sucks, then changed it Adulting – Why We Work. Basically this is it and we bring up kids to go through this whole cycle themselves.

Sometimes I think about what it would be like to be able to live off the grid, within our natural rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (happiness being interpreted as having meaning and purpose), live without interference from and obligation to government, but instead willingness to help each other and trade services and items without need for recognized currency. Life, meeting our basic needs off the land. A water source for drinking and hygiene, hunting/farming/foraging for food, a shelter, heat sources of the sun and wood from trees from the land, minimal clothing needed to be warm, and clean air. No pesticides, herbicides, waste or pollution from industrialisation and transport. Communities of people who really help and support each other, not just throw money at problems that are mostly man-made for profit.

It would be hard work, but we would have healthful food, healthy fit bodies, lives not controlled by money, minds not controlled by media, social or otherwise. Better connectedness to the land and people around us, better rest, contentedness, meaning, and purpose.

Is it possible to have the latter without the former? Are we able to have the latter with everything in my outline?

Below is a thought-provoking article I found after creating the outline and searching inalienable rights.

View story at Medium.com
Adulting – Why We Work
Income
Taxes (to support government programs and infrastructure)
Federal tax
State tax
Withholding (so someday we no longer have to work/in case we are longer able to work)
Social Security
Medicare
Retirement contribution
Insurance premiums
S/L term disability
Life
Health
Loans/Credit
Education (to increase what we are able to earn)
Tuition
Fees
Books
Principal
Interest
Auto (transportation to get to the job so we can earn the money to pay for loans)
Principal
Interest
Inspection
Registration
Tax
Insurance
Maintenance
Fuel
Clothing (basic need and to dress appropriately for the job we go to to afford clothing)
Shelter (basic need)
Mortgage
Principal
Interest
Insurance
Property tax
Maintenance
Heating
Water/Sewer (basic need)
Hygiene and grooming products
Food/Drink (basic need and entertainment/overconsumption)
Groceries/home
Restaurants/bars//fast food
Obesity
High blood pressure, diabetes, heart, kidney, liver diseases
Preventative care
Sick care
Hospital
Drugs
Deductibles
Coinsurance
Copays
More Dx
More drugs
Addiction/dependence
Electricity (to power our homes for food, drink,clothing, maintenance, entertainment)
Kitchen appliances
Laundry appliances
Entertainment
Movies/shows
Sports
Music
Social media
Shopping
Cable
Wireless
Electronics
TV
Computers
Phones
Tablets
Recreation
Hobbies
Outdoor recreation
Indoor recreation
Gyms
Group fitness
Organized sports
Other travel and expenses vacation, visit/care for family, etc.
Vacation
Elder care
Weddings, birthdays, holidays
Transportation
Plane, bus, Taxi/Uber
Hotel
Meals
Clothing
Entertainment
Gifts
Children
Daycare (we pay other people, usually strangers, sometimes unreliable, sometimes dangerous unbeknownst to us, to take care of our kids so we can go earn the income to cover all of these things plus the kids’ needs)
Food
Water
Shelter
Clothing
Entertainment
Recreation
Health care
Sick care
Education

Then children repeat the cycle.

Income…

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