I would prefer not to die alone. Not only for the company in probably one of, if not the biggest, scariest, event in someone’s life, but also because of the logistics. I’d hate to be going out, unable to move while laying on the kitchen floor, and desperately, deliriously, thirsty with 2 days worth of shit caked in my pants.

That said, if going alone seems to be the case, I’ll try to arrange things in advance and face it with some degree of stoicism.

Prep cook at a small restaurant. Tell them you only want to work part-time and they’ll make it happen.

Then just put on your headphones and chop vegetables and meats for a few hours. Lowest stress position in a kitchen. And you usually have your own separate kitchen area and nobody will bother you.

Exactly where I am at right now. I’m pretty frugal; started out with nothing and I still have most of it left.

Especially after the conviction!

What the fuck is frogging?

If you want to live by the sword, you have to be prepared to die by the sword.

No, they get stronger as they modernize.

Just wait until they figure out how to get on the wifi.

Thank you for the kind words.

500 Michigans?? That’s quite a bit longer!

Personal issues got in the way.

Well sure. I started a mobile auto repair business. That’s a field that is rife with incompetents, junkies, and straight up scammers. It’s the Wild West as far as businesses go.

Unlike most of the mobile guys in town, I went all in on the professional front. Had a webpage, business cards, uniforms, took CC on the spot or online, emailed pdfs of estimates, diagnostics, and invoices, etc.

By the time I wrapped it up, I had a huge roster of clients. Years later I still get calls. I did it simply by being honest and trying to make sure my customers interests were also my interests.

I turned down work if it was outside of my abilities, I never upsold, if I broke something I paid for it out of pocket, and tried my very hardest to not recommend any repair without solid diagnostics first.

Had I wanted to keep going, I could have easily hired a crew and expanded. Once your name gets out, there’s more work than one person can shake a stick at. And expanding means transitioning from laborer to manager. Then it’s on to franchising.

When you get an LLC, the banks will throw money at you. Even without collateral. What ever you are being offered in personal loans now, times it by 10. Show a years worth of growth and reasonable fiscal management and they’ll give you a key to the vault. No joke.

So, yes, if you have a skill, you can do honest business and turn very little into a lot.

Escape the hell that is forcing you to labor.

Uh, it’s very interesting if you’re into allegorical reinterpretations of universal deism and some esoteric rituals. But, yeah, the dinners are pretty much the highlight.

It’s layered.

At the base level it’s just a mix of a kind of old tv static and what sounds like a creek bubbling. It’s the pre-verbalization soup- textured with sub-thoughts, half-impulses, emotional currents. It’s noticeable background noise but not particularly loud.

Above that is another layer of multiple streams of wordage. Just kind of nonsensical whispers that flow around non-stop. Sometimes there are also impressions of images but nothing definitive. Emotional tones are strongest here.

Above that is the focused wordage, or the internal monologue. Usually it’s proposed point or observation by one “me” and counter-point or add-on by another “me”. There’s no set number of "me"s. Occasionally it’s a construct of some other people I know. Just tangential rambling in incomplete sentences mostly unless I am really trying to sort something out, then it’s more structured. There’s a part of my mind that seems to calculate the conclusion to what I am mentally verbalizing that is one step ahead of the words so often there isn’t a need to complete a thought. This is also where the music and images play.

There is one more layer above all that, the working space, when I really focus, all the other layers fade from consciousness, words are clear, sharp, and coherent and the back-and-forth feels more like a unified “me”, it’s also where I deliberately create and manipulate mental images, movies, concoct scenarios and music plays the clearest.

Fuck 'em, that’s what I learned.

Yeah, like every day when I drag my ass out of bed to go to work, look around and think “this is a bunch of bullshit”

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

I saw it in the theater as a teenager. I thought it was hilarious. Saw it again 15 years later and was like “this is trash, how did I like this?” Last rewatch I was like “the camp is actually brilliant.”

“There was such a potential for all of us to live brilliant, flourishing, fulfilling lives.”

No there wasn’t. That’s just part of the illusion they sell you. The entire thing is just a shakey extension into the sky built upon a foundation it continues to havest from to give the impression of growth. It was only great for a few of us and it could never last.

I do agree with your sentiment and feel like if humans weren’t the way we are we could still build a global paradise.

But that’s not the way humans operate.

Lol, first time?

You should read up on how we did Sadam. The US diplo April Glass gave tacit approval for his occupation of Kuwait and we then used that as a reason to retaliate and stabbed him in the back to get the oil.

Even better, you should look up how we completely fabricated a boogeyman out of Gaddafi.

Everything that reaches the ears of the public is a lie.