Some things I've learned

You can learn a lot from going overseas. All you have to do is open your mind when you open your eyes.

Long-ass blather follows. Go fetch a cuppa if you’re going to read this.

Considering that I have the attention span of a slightly concussed kitten, I’ll try to keep things organised with some bold headers.

Our current economic woes are our own fault and the solution lies within.

Basically, we let the corporate giants get that gosh-darn big, and it’s up to us to cut them down to size.

You don’t need them for stuff. You can make your own. You don’t need them for a job. All you need is a saleable skill and you can work for yourself. SO is. I am. You can, too. You don’t even need them for a place to sleep. There’s something like 27 empty homes for each homeless person in the US. The statistics may be otherwise elsewhere, but there’s almost always somewhere to go, even if it’s squatting in a cave, somewhere.

Consider what you absolutely, positively need versus what you want. You need air - thank the powers above that the big They haven’t found a way to make you pay for that. You need clean water. Given the current ecological crisis, you can make your own with a distillery and/or a homemade charcoal filter. It’s got to the point where you have to distil/filter rain, for crying out loud. These bastards have got to be stopped.

You need food. You can grow your own, even if it’s in potplants. Yes, it takes butt-tons of time, but so does social media. Guess which one is directly related to your getting fed tomorrow?

You need shelter. You do not need a split-level mansion cleverly constructed onto a cliffside. If you’re planning to farm, you do need some earth not directly exposed to stuff like the Monsan-toe-rags’ toxic spills and copyrighted gmod trash. Which, when you come to think of it, are almost the same thing.

You need community. Face it, face time makes real people of us. We’re exposed to other people’s feelings and realities and it grounds us. We need to help and be helped. Society exists because of helping and being helped. It’s in our makeup. When all we do is help ourselves, that’s when our minds decay and we turn into monsters.

You need to love and feel as if you are loved. And by “loved” I do not mean sex. Sex and love can go together, but they don’t have to. Ask any married person ;) Love, in my personal dictionary, is wanting the one you love to have the best possible existence - even if it means that you, personally, are not a part of it. That last bit hurts. Been there, done that, bought the hair shirt. Long story. If your brand of love means hurting the one you love against their will - you’re not in love. You’re in poison. Knock it off.

Ahem