tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82004549958873083982024-03-14T20:12:30.854+11:00Meanderingsme·an·der·ing - to proceed by or take a winding or indirect courseBernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-58201758105107610932016-05-31T15:16:00.000+10:002016-05-31T15:21:00.859+10:00♫♪ Memories are made of this ♪♫ It has been a long while since I posted anything here. Sometimes it is good to look back, and today I was reminded by Facebook about a post I made exactly three years ago here. It was specifically this Meanderings post: <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">I Need To Think About My Future.</a><br />
<br />
Having read and reflected on what I said back then, I re-shared the post on Facebook today with these extra thoughts: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #660000;">A memory from three years ago. Strange to think, nothing much has changed.<br /><br />My thinking has not changed. My situation has not changed, much. Only my location has changed. Mostly for the better. It has been two years since I moved home, and it has taken that long to get a garden started from scratch. It is now operating productively, thank goodness, but still with a long way of development to go.<br /><br />Oh, and I shouldn't forget, the world has also changed, and even though that change has been a continuation along the slope of decline that I observed some years ago we are now in a much more dangerous and climactic phase of civilisational collapse as we slide ever nearer to the bottom than we were even three years ago. <br /><br />There is not a lot to be joyful about, knowing that we may never again reach the heights of industry and technology that we have experienced in the last decades. Or maybe that in itself is something to be joyful about. But I guess that is something that only those who can remember earlier, different, times, would have the ability to appreciate or even recognise. Those who have arrived on the scene in recent years are going to have a very hard time adjusting to the new low-technology world once everything 'hi-tech' stops working. </span> </blockquote>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-6809225665879148022015-05-09T00:34:00.000+10:002015-05-09T00:38:06.546+10:00Sustainability Is So 'Noughties'A short post, but intense in meaning and purpose.<br />
<br />
I just read <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/2015/05/resilience-is-the-new-black/">this article from The Automatic Earth today</a>, about sustainability and resilience. Thanks go to Ilargi once again for being a great source of good solid news and views. <br />
<br />
Here is my take on this:<br />
<br />
It's true. <b>Sustainability</b> is so 'noughties'. That realisation comes
when you see that basically nothing is sustainable, never was, never
will be. Sustainability has changed nothing. In fact it has only made
things worse.<br />
<br />
So, what's left? <b>Resilience</b> (no not the resilience that <a href="http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2FResilience.org%2F&h=GAQGwZeBB&enc=AZM_RX5ZARJYPs_2IACIpSTEgbdTTeZSKqrjpXCvWQkq4MzQEFPACMySULjEpmXg8QPphtslIIhOvMq9kfjsciCGmzwnOoUazmEvfXG8MNKFyNdumzYTOq3k6D4_iQbT0onrzjtJhLFHcd_lj_FmmdRKOBROoZCSLCRhcu2c3Z-Q1cYDfk4E7-3Rh2tEvZ8nPdibY5vX3xZ3e09TEpsvxcRj&s=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Resilience.org</a>
talks mainly about, they are still into looking for sustainability, or the manipulation of the future,
mostly).<br />
<br />
Real resilience is about:<br />
<ul>
<li> the learning to cope in less than perfect
circumstances</li>
<li> the strengthening of the will<span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the self-preparation to face the unknown</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the gathering of knowledge</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the practicing of meaningful effort</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the passing on of those things to
others</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the getting ready to wade through the shit and slime and to
reach the far side intact</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the will to carry on when everyone else has
fallen</span></li>
<li><span class="text_exposed_show"> the grounded-ness and fortitude to rebuild</span></li>
</ul>
<span class="text_exposed_show">Resilience is not
about whinging, bemoaning, or ignoring, the state of things (<i>but it is
about the seeing and the declaration of where those things are heading,
so that others may see</i>). </span><br />
<br />
<span class="text_exposed_show">Resilience is not about trying to head off or
divert the future into something that we would like to see, but about
preparing to meet the future as it comes, knowing that you have the means,
courage, knowledge, and experience to deal with whatever that future may
bring.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
...and that is
exactly what is behind just about everything that I attempt to do, and
will continue to do while I have the strength, every day that passes.</div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-50536903046199640132015-04-21T22:37:00.001+10:002015-04-22T11:43:50.594+10:00Even Gods Die<h2>
Confronting Mortality</h2>
<br />
I recently reached and passed my 70th birthday. That is a point in time, not necessarily the first one, but certainly a defining moment to give more than a passing thought to your own physical mortality.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #990000;">"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."</span></span><span class="p"><br />
</span></blockquote>
<br />
If you have read the Bible (<i>not that I am advocating that as a particularly useful thing to do</i>) and you choose to believe some or all of what it says (<i>though, if you do, I suggest that you review your reasons for doing so rather more carefully than you may have done in reaching that position of faith</i>) of course you would be aware of that tome's declaration, Psalm 90:10, that the 70 years mentioned in the above quote is the allotted age of man. The 'three score years and ten' for which we are led to believe that we are expected to live, and beyond which we may continue only on the basis of our own strength. The physical 'use by' date at which our various bodily bits and pieces may be expected to start wearing out, dropping off, or disintegrating, to the detriment of our continued ability to breathe, move about, or generally operate in the relatively coordinated manner that we have been used to enjoying in earlier times, should we have been so lucky.<br />
<br />
Whether or not the 'three score years and ten' was a valid measure of longevity at the time or in the place where this was written (or added in translation), and that seems doubtful, in the intervening years this figure has been a gross exaggeration of man's actual life expectancy.<br />
<br />
We know from records that the figure for length of life of the average American in the mid nineteenth century was not much more than 40 years and even in the mid 20th century this was still true for many nations around the world and only the privileged residents of a dozen or so very advanced societies could claim that 70 year expectation of the Psalmist. Things are different today of course with the rapid advances of medical science in the last century, drawing out life-spans in the low-eighties for the privileged with some even reaching a century or more, but even so there are still several African nations where people can expect only a sub-fifty year life-span.<br />
<br />
We are intrinsically mortal beings (<i>at least the animal part of us is and as for any other part I may attempt to discuss that later</i>). That realisation may come as something of a shock when confronted for the first time. It is not part of our programming to think about such things and we generally tend to keep ourselves busy doing other things, many of them quite superfluous and unnecessary, in order to avoid that.<br />
<br />
I can't say that I have never before considered my own death , or death in general, in fact I have read and studied quite widely on the subject in the past, but I have never worried about it or considered it to be an imminent experience for me to pass through. In fact for some years I came to consider myself as possessing a certain immunity to the effects of ageing, having led something of a charmed, healthy and accident free life for the most part after a scare or two in my early years. Throughout my fifties and early sixties I considered myself as having a good expectancy of living well past a hundred years, retaining full health and vitality right to the very end and passing peacefully at the right moment in full possession of my faculties, voluntarily relinquishing the ties to my body and stepping out joyfully and expectantly to whatever came next.<br />
<br />
That whole paradigm came crashing down quite unexpectedly (<i>I am still trying to rebuild it</i>) shortly after my 65th birthday, almost as if my own 'use by' date had passed, as I have explained elsewhere. Suffice to say that I suffered a short illness as a result of a disturbance to my thyroid function which in turn disrupted my regular heartbeat into something more resembling morse-code. An effect that has remained with me to this day, five years later. I am no expert but I suspect that situation will, to some greater or lesser extent, have altered ie. shortened my longevity somewhat.<br />
<br />
I am not afraid to die, having confronted that possibility every day for the last five years now. Dying holds no great dread, nor should it. It is part of the natural cycle of physical life. There is a beginning. There is a middle (supposed to be the fun part). There is an end. Simple. People do it all the time. I expect to talk more about that later.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
Preparing for Death</h2>
<br />
I try not to think about dying too much but it is difficult not to do so when I begin to sweat profusely after a few minutes of even mild activity or work, and I noticeably tire rather quickly. As a result of my condition I have to give thought to whether and/or how I tackle the sort of jobs that I would have found routine in times past. This is not the result of age. I am fit and strong and still reasonably flexible.<br />
<br />
I am fully cognisant that my heart could throw up its hands and down tools at any time, leaving me with no engine to operate the body I have become accustomed to using and living in. I am not afraid of that, in fact I factor that possibility into pretty much everything I do. It is the reason for my choosing to live remotely, away from all of the normal support services of civilisation. Perhaps I should explain that a little.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Some thoughts on living</h3>
<br />
Over the ages, mankind has developed certain traditions, social patterns and living habits. They differ from nation to nation, region to region, even community to community, but by and large, people are expected to adhere to these accepted norms.<br />
<br />
In our society, you get born, most often in a hospital, you are cared for, fed, clothed, and nourished in a family environment (<i>let it be recognised that I am generalising here of course</i>) until you are of an age to be educated. You are subject to schooling for around 12 years (<i>during which time you are taught the rudiments of literacy and nothing much else of any real value</i>) and during that time you progress from being an infant and journey through your difficult adolescent years, a time during which your activities, behaviours, motives and moods are endlessly and minutely scrutinised for any deviation from accepted norms. You may go to univerisity or college, but in the end, assuming you still have the capacity to do so, you are expected to become a productive member of society by entering your working years in a career or job. The idea of this is that you will earn your keep, and use the money your labour has earned on the sort of stuff that will keep the society into which you were born as a helpless baby, to keep on growing. You will also be expected to assist that societal growth by forming a new family unit and producing more new members just as you yourself were and you will be expected to look after them until they can fulfill their expected destiny as well. And so on, <i>ad infinitum</i>. Eventually you will grow old and cease to be productive as a worker, but you can still be useful if you have managed to save some of your earnings from work to support you through to the end of your life by continuing to buy stuff, traveling a bit, getting sick and needing medical treatment. Spend, spend, spend, and somehow kept alive until there is not much left to spend, at which point you are allowed to die, an event which generates enormous expense for your descendents if you have not covered it yourself.<br />
<br />
That may sound a little cynical, but it is in fact what life is all about in a modern society. You are born to be a consumer unit. That is how you are viewed. Your personal details are less important to society than the means that it uses to keep tabs on you, a set of numbers such as Tax File, credit card, bank account, Medicare, health insurance, drivers licence, and many others.<br />
<br />
There is a 'beginning' as I said earlier. Your infancy and childhood. You are not productive during that period but society benefits greatly from it as you generate enormous amounts of expense for your forebears.<br />
<br />
There is a 'middle', as I also mentioned. This is your productive phase when you generate enormous amounts of money, little of which you are able to keep for yourself and the things that you would personally like to do. Just enough to keep you from going off the rails, hopefully. Most of what you earn will go to the society itself, helping it to grow, either directly as taxes or indirectly as the price of purchasing consumer goods and the necessities of life, which in turn will be income for someone else to contribute from as taxes and consumption in the same way.<br />
<br />
There is an 'end' also. In this phase, much of your wealth and further income from savings is sucked from you, largely to prolong your life for as long as possible, ultimately leading to the generation of even more expense to adequately or even profligately deal with your remains, expense that someone, if not you yourself, has to pay for.<br />
<br />
I am now, since I retired from work at the end of 2010, well within that final phase, the 'end' part of life. Try as I might to ignore that fact, I know that is going to be increasingly difficult to do.<br />
<br />
What has all of that got to do with my choosing to live remotely, away from all of the normal support services of civilisation? Well, unless I had gone to the trouble of explaining all of that, what I am going to say next may not have made an awful lot of sense.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Some thoughts on dying</h3>
<br />
Just a little more background is necessary I think.<br />
<br />
Over recent years I have become more aware of the dangers of reality facing mankind in what we refer to as the 21st Century. If the reader is unsure of just what I mean by that, then a reading of some of the other posts on this blog or my other blog at <a href="https://notsomethingelse.wordpress.com/">Not Something Else</a>, where many links to relevant sources may be found, may serve to illuminate the point.<br />
<br />
With that increased awareness came responsibility. Responsibility to do whatever I can, little though that may be, to steer my life in a direction such that I make as small an impact as I can with my limited powers and resources, on the possible outcome of global events affecting us all.<br />
<br />
This is why, since retiring four and a half years ago, I have chosen to live as simply and cheaply as I can, consuming as little of the community's goods and services as is practicable, while educating, equipping and preparing myself for the imminent probability of those same goods and services becoming increasingly unobtainable and possibly disappearing altogether at some future stage.<br />
<br />
A not inconsiderable part of that philosophy, which I know is difficult for many people now firmly ensconced and entwined in the tendrils of the modern societal system to understand, is to not allow myself to become reliant on, and especially to not become dependent on, the established, formal, pharmaceutical industry based, health services of the nation. I have no desire (that is about the most polite descriptor I can reveal for my feelings on this) to become a zombie pill popper feeding and contributing to the power of the one thing that I believe is the greatest threat to humanity at this time. Just to be clear, I mean the Big Pharma industry not the health services, possibly unwittingly enrolled as the distributors of its nefarious wares.<br />
<br />
Why? Simply because with its drive to prolong life, or what passes for life under its 'slow walking death' treatments that never quite cure but often, actually always, in the end (when the bank accounts have been sufficiently sucked dry) kill.<br />
<br />
It is partly down to the greed and avarice of the system, that I object.<br />
<br />
It is mostly because this prolonging of the lives of the elderly beyond what would naturally occur without the support of modern medicine (and yes I know we all die eventually), is artificially inflating the total world population level. I am fully aware that the ageing population is not biggest or even a significant contributor to the population explosion, but it doesn't help matters. <br />
<br />
All of the foregoing explanation (reasoning is, of necessity, if it is to be reasonably understood, always a longer, more drawn out process than making a simple statement - why's and wherefores are important) serves to form the backdrop for my position as to why I choose to live remotely, away from all of the normal support services of civilisation.<br />
<br />
It is simply that when my time comes, however it comes, I do not want to wake up from a coma, induced or not, and find myself connected to a bank of machines with tubes down my throat and effluent bags strapped to my body in something of a drug induced haze of never-neverland, being prodded and poked like a side of beef.<br />
<br />
I would rather, given the choice, chance and a little premonitional warning, simply pack my bags, wander off into the bush, find a nice quiet peaceful place to camp and lie down restfully waiting for the moment to pass over, listening to the sounds of nature. Thus avoiding the discomfort of laying in a hospital bed, with no rights or privacy, in a busy, noisy, thoroughly disagreeable and unnatural environment, listening to people talking about me as if I were not there. It would also avoid a grotesquely expensive funeral.<br />
<br />
Of course ideals are not always obtainable or offered by nature. What if my heart fails suddenly without warning? What if I fall asleep while driving? What if I am seriously injured or beaten in a house invasion? What if I fall off a ladder while cleaning my roof gutters? None of these things nor a thousand other possibilities falls within my ideal. Any do-gooder could find me in one of these dramas and ship me or arrange for me to be shipped off to hospital. Well, living where I do, in most cases it is likely that any help would arrive too late to be of any real assistance (one reason, if only a small consideration, for my choice of home), and while in these situations I might suffer some real pain, discomfort and distress for a while until passing, that would be preferable in a way to suffering a hospital recovery. If I should be found in such a situation, unconscious or comatose, I would wish it to be known that my preference would be to have it recorded that I choose a 'Do Not Resuscitate' option and the most cost effective (cardboard box burning, possibly) disposal of my remains. <br />
<br />
I think that about covers what I wanted to say on this.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h2>
Of Gods and Men</h2>
<br />
I have never come to terms with why humans make such a fuss about dying, nor the reasons behind preserving or honouring the burial places of ancestors, and especially not the profuse expressions of grief and anguish over the simple and natural passing of another human. Lives cut short by circumstances I can understand the need for some grieving by loved ones, but beyond that it is a natural and expected part of living here in a body and on a planet governed by the laws of nature and physics. In some ways, those communities that celebrate with joy and feasting the passing of a life well lived, express the most appropriate attitude toward death.<br />
<br />
I have never been a big believer in suffering, which is probably why I adhere to no religion since that is all they seem to offer in this life. Life is to be enjoyed, lived and expressed in whatever ways we are capable of doing.<br />
<br />
On this world, we are gods. We possess intellect. We have dexterity (generally speaking). We are able to express emotion. We have been imbued with freedom of choice. We are strong in body and mind (again, speaking generally). We are creative and clever.<br />
<br />
While we have often ceded those freedoms and abused those attributes, that is also the type of behaviour that we have come to expect of gods. Because that is exactly the traits displayed by those that we ourselves look up to, or in the past have looked up to as gods in many instances.<br />
<br />
Could that be because we are the prodigy of those gods? There are many ancient tales of gods of old having intimate relations with human women, even tales of them creating us in their own image as in the Sumerian stories of the Anunnaki, linked through the god of heaven and earth, Enlil, to the now god of the three main monotheistic religions, El. Though it was Enlil's brother Ea, now seen as the serpent for various reasons, who was described as our actual friend and creator along with the sister of both of them, Nintu (aka Ninharsag or Mami).<br />
<br />
Whatever. All of them and many other gods from different pantheons were known to be profligate sexual beings.<br />
<br />
And many of these gods died, according to the stories about them. Often they killed each other for some mal-natured reason.<br />
<br />
Yes, even gods die. So what have we to fear of the beyond? I would like to delve further into that and also the non-animal part of us that I mentioned earlier, and may do so at some stage, but I think this is enough for now. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
~(-)~</div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-41709265405125275842015-02-26T19:02:00.001+11:002015-02-26T19:45:59.636+11:00Living Without Money? Who'da Thunk It?<br />
I came across this article today on the Organic Health website: <a href="http://organichealth.co/shes-69-and-hasnt-used-money-for-15-years-and-has-never-been-happier/">http://organichealth.co/shes-69-and-hasnt-used-money-for-15-years-and-has-never-been-happier/</a> It concerns a woman who for most of her life enjoyed a quite reasonable level of affluence, which 15 years ago she turned her back on, deciding to live without money for as long as she could. She is still apparently doing that and it makes a pretty interesting story.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/16610701" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
This story got me thinking. <br />
<br />
At first I thought "I would like to know this woman's secret" but then I realised that no I wouldn't. I wouldn't particularly want to do the same thing. Not that what she has done is wrong. It is in fact quite commendable. What she has done for 15 years is not scrounging. She has given of her time and effort in order to receive her daily necessities. However, we could not all do that in a society such as we have today.<br />
<br />
But in a different sort of society? What then?<br />
<br />
Eventually we will all have to live without money and that day is closer than you might think. I will be happy to be moneyless when that day arrives and I think, having spent many hours considering such things, I am well prepared for it. Maybe not as well prepared as I could be, but nevertheless, better equipped than most. And I am now retired and living on a modest income.<br />
<br />
Many people are afraid of retirement because they can see no way that they could live without an income similar to what they currently enjoy. I, myself was not a little apprehensive about that prospect too, but I find that I can live very well on less than a quarter of my pre-retirement income. Furthermore, the cause of the majority of my current living expenses would simply disappear when money also vanishes. <br />
<br />
The expenses I am referring to are transport and rent. <br />
<br />
I still use a motor vehicle to get around, although I also have a bike (not a working one but I do own one nonetheless). I don't travel far now and clock up only around 8-9,000km a year and some of that is related to doing things for other people. The rest is for food shopping or to meet my societal commitments. Well, I won't have any societal commitments after society collapses financially and money disappears and there will not be anywhere to go buy food, other than locally based swap-meets offering locally grown surplus food.<br />
<br />
Consequently, under those circumstances, I will not need the services of my car. It wouldn't run anyway for long, unless I found a horse to pull it (<i>minus engine, transmission and much of the bodywork of course. oh, wait, isn't that a cart?</i>).<br />
<br />
As for rent, along with the disappearance of money and all that goes with it, and the consequent societal storm that would follow (during which I would keep a very low profile and perhaps find a convenient safe shelter until it had all blown over), quite a large proportion of the populace would have also disappeared, including most of the property owners who would have perished under the mistaken idea of defending their indefensible properties from the marrauding, starving hoards of ...zombies?... Well, perhaps not quite that, but certainly folk not in the right state of mind to observe social niceties. And don't forget that the police and military would quickly go home to protect their own families as soon as they realised they had stopped being paid to put themselves in harms way for a society that had now let them down and in fact no longer existed in any meaningful way.<br />
<br />
The picture I am trying to paint here is that I believe that I, assuming I am still around after all of the rocks stop rolling, should be able to move into or onto any nice property/accomodation that may take my fancy or have the appearance or potential for being defensible and productive for the purposes of growing adequate nourishing food, without having the need to ask anyone's permission or turf out any reluctant resident. Of course, a better alternative would be to associate with a like-minded group of some sort, if one can be found. But, folk being folk, that path is paved with just as many pitfalls as getting along with neighbours in the old world just passed away, and most people still remaining will have been suffering a fair degree of personal trauma and may not be for a while and perhaps never, the sort of stable, reliable persons that you may wish for as companions. If you saw someone come sauntering down the road, openly talking to themselves, you would be best advised to remain hidden until they had gone by, instead of jumping out at the sight of another human and hugging them joyfully. If you did that, your joy may not be long enduring, and at the least you may have saddled yourself with another harmless but useless mouth to feed. Those times will not be the right time to practice lovingkindness or other forms of altruistic endeavour. <br />
<br />
Since I am already used to living alone, with only occasional personal encounters with others, I think I would initially at least unless by force of circumstance try to make it on my own for a while and wait for the right companions to make an appearance at the right time.<br />
<br />
So, for me, the lack or unavailability of currency in any form will not, all things being equal, be a problem. Furthermore, anyone for whom it would have been a problem, largely people even partially dependent on services provided by the old system that had just crashed, would no longer be around to buy those services even if they could somehow be restored.<br />
<br />
The only remaining necessity of life, with accommodation taken care of and the need for transport nullified, would be food and water. I greatly pity any of the remaining population who would wish to continue consuming meat as part of their diet. Unless of course they were formerly trained in or had practice in the field of butchery and/or animal husbandry/hunting. I think most survivors would readily turn to edible produce that is either grown in the ground or on trees/shrubs. That will suit me just fine and while I am no expert I do have some practice and already know many of the mistakes that can be made in that area.<br />
<br />
I might even be persuaded to take up eating meat again myself in those circumstances. Never again though would animals need to be industrially farmed, which is one of my current objections to the consumption of meat, but not the only one by any means. I think it should be borne in mind that anyone who survives this period of upheaval will need to quickly learn to kill animals anyway out of necessity not to be eaten or at least potentially fatally harmed by them. Consider the number of stray dogs, formerly pets, who would pack together to hunt anything that moved. For a long time, until the problem was overcome, I think it would be a case of kill or be killed. Who else is going to look after you? And there could be worse predators than dogs. Including human ones. <br />
<br />
Have any readers of this ever considered these things? Maybe you should. At least a little bit.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
-::- </div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-46824313880873029252015-02-21T09:20:00.000+11:002015-02-21T23:02:53.672+11:00Have You Been Here Before?<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
Featuring today an article that is both interesting and well worth a read: <a href="http://naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/4-signs-that-this-isnt-your-first-life-on-earth/">http://naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/4-signs-that-this-isnt-your-first-life-on-earth/</a><br />
<br />
I personally believe in reincarnation but, like all belief systems,
that is all that it is, a belief. We can never know (can never
remember) for sure while living here, and should view with distrust
anyone who tries to tell us otherwise or who claims to know they have
been someone of importance or prominence in a previous life. That
particular fantasy is merely a natural human tendency to gain a degree
of ascendancy over others.<br />
<br />
I haven't quite yet been able to mesh
this belief with my other pet belief in the ancient records of a race of
alien gods who genetically created us in their own image, based on
existing bipedal planetary stock, as a servant or 'worker' race, a
servitude that we have never really shaken off even though it has become
quite apparent now that there are no longer any 'gods' around to lord
it over us. But I don't hold that meshing of ideas, or lack of, as
being of particular importance at this stage.<br />
<br />
I don't believe
in young souls and old souls as is mentioned and believed by some. I do
believe that all souls are on their own personal trajectory of
development, not necessarily and perhaps nothing to do with growth or
betterment or advancement, which seems to be the goal or ideal of many.
That smacks of competition and of gaining position or grade through
virtue and effort. Such ideas have no place at all in my view of
things, which tends to be more along the lines that we are all flowing
through an eternal process, picking up things, traits, ideas here and
there, to no apparent purpose as far as I can see, but to participate in
and enjoy the journey, through whatever our lot is at any given point
along the course or cycle or whatever it is.<br />
<br />
If reincarnation
means anything, then it means that we are all part of a spiritual
oneness (spiritual because that is essentially what we are, not the
solid or flabby creature that faces us in the mirror every day, and
oneness because we are not capable of self-existence outside of
everything else) and therefore were either brought into being at the
same time or more likely we all have always existed and always will
exist. Not as the person that we are now, or with the relationships
with others that we hold so dear (or not) in this life. I don't
consider the people we are now nor the people that we know now will be
at all recognisable to us or have any special meaning to us in any other
life. That would make a mockery of the whole point of reincarnation.
But there is a special something, some inextinguishable part of us that
carries on to other times and places in and in-between physical
lifetimes.<br />
<br />
Some people believe that we spend most of our
experience in a physical body on a sort of cyclic wheel of life until we
are fit to get off that cycle. I don't see it that way. I also do not
necessarily agree with the Rosicrucian cyclic idea that claims that we
spend a period of something like a thousand years between physical
existences, absorbing the lessons of the previous and preparing for the
next by setting goals and choosing parents. Neither of those regimented
schemes satisfactorily explain the path or purpose of existence for me
personally. But I would like to know just what does go on 'in-between'
and how many lifetimes each of us may have experienced.<br />
<br />
I read
somewhere that someone has calculated that in all of human history there
have been something like 150 billion separate human lives. I have no
way of knowing how accurate that figure may be, but if we take it as a
starting point for calculation, how many of those lives were mine, or
yours?<br />
<br />
There are some 7+ billion of us alive right now. In another
40 years or so there could be 14 billion simultaneously living humans,
god help us if it ever comes to that. So, 7 billion now plus however
many there are in the state of in-between, and let us suggest that there
could never be more than 14 billion simultaneous lives ever, as a point
of conjecture. So, on average, dividing 14 into 150, it seems that we
may (with the parameters as stated) each have experienced a maximum of
11 different physical lifetimes, so far, over the span of human history.<br />
<br />
Talking about the span of human history, if we tentatively take that to
be a period of from a high of 2 million years to a low of 250,000 years
as claimed by the Anunaki theorists of the alien god creators and
meshing in well with the archeological history of homo sapiens, there
has been an average mean time between lifetimes of somewhere between
182,000 down to 23,000 years. Neither of those period limits fit in well
with either of the main cyclic theories of existence but, as I implied
earlier, ancient knowledge carries no more validity than insights we may
gain from what has been revealed through discovery in modern times up to today, and no-one knows anything about these things for sure. <br />
<br />
It could be said though that
as the human population grew from something in the order of 1 billion
people to 7 billion over only the last two hundred years or so, that as
more bodies became available, more of us could have reincarnated at any
point in recent time, with the effect that the majority of those 11
personal lifetimes (as calculated) could have been enacted over the last
two hundred years. They would have to have been mostly short lifetimes
for that to be true, but when you consider the many millions of
ourselves we have collectively killed through warfare and other means
over that most recent period, a great many lives have indeed been on the
short side.<br />
<br />
Oh, I think I may have accidentally discovered a thought linking between the reincarnation theory and the alien god theory in the previous two paragraphs. What if our reincarnations only started since the time of homo sapiens 250,000 years ago, which links in with the mythic history of the alien gods getting fed up with doing all of the work themselves and deciding to make a 'worker' race, which turned out to be homo sapiens, us? That is a positive link if it should turn out to be true.<br /><br />There's something to think about. But remember, it is only conjecture. Don't be taken in by what seems to be bullshit to you. But if this all seems too hard to think about, maybe you have spent too much time partying in this and previous lifetimes. It seems that way of life is one of the possible choices that is open to us, until we are ready to move on but, given that life is precious, wouldn't it be considered a total waste to spend it partying?</div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-66784769577937696562014-11-28T21:21:00.002+11:002014-11-28T21:59:16.673+11:00Christmas-Schmismas <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>C<span style="color: #cc0000;">h</span>r<span style="color: #cc0000;">i</span>s<span style="color: #cc0000;">t</span>m<span style="color: #cc0000;">a</span>s-S<span style="color: #cc0000;">c</span>h<span style="color: #cc0000;">m</span>i<span style="color: #cc0000;">s</span>m<span style="color: #cc0000;">a</span>s<span style="font-size: large;">. </span></span></b></span> <span style="color: #741b47;">I'm over it already.</span> <br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><b> Bah humbug! </b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #741b47;">Sickened by the crass, pointless, mad consumerist spendathon that it is, I don't intend spending anything on it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #741b47;">Well, actually I have already bought a Christmas pudding, but that is because I like Christmas pudding and this is the only time of year you can get it. But that is it. No more.</span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #741b47;">Well, actually I may buy a carton of Brandy Custard to go with my pudding because I like that too. And it is my only annual indulgence in dairy milk products. But that really is it. Nothing else. I mean it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #741b47;"><br />
</span> <span style="color: #741b47;">So, because Yuletide in the southern hemisphere is in June and we are coming up to the Pagan festival of Litha (The Summer Solstice), here is an alternative seasonal wish for all my Meanderings Blogspot friends, followers, stalkers and casual readers:</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span> W</span>ishing <span style="color: #6aa84f;">y</span>ou a <span style="color: #6aa84f;">B</span>lessed <span style="color: #6aa84f;">L</span>itha. </b></span></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="color: #6aa84f;"> <span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>M</span>ay <span style="color: #6aa84f;">t</span>he <span style="color: #6aa84f;">L</span>ight <span style="color: #6aa84f;">a</span>lways <span style="color: #6aa84f;">s</span>hine <span style="color: #6aa84f;">o</span>n <span style="color: #6aa84f;">y</span>our <span style="color: #6aa84f;">w</span>ay. </b></span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-35689402176963474452014-11-21T13:37:00.000+11:002014-11-21T15:28:05.524+11:00Not Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", But MineI have often asked myself, in fact this is something that I continually do, and any readers of my various writings may have asked the same thing, of me or perhaps even of themselves, "Why do I do the things that I do, which separate, differentiate and individuate me from everyone else?".<br />
<br />
Why do I take the trouble to step outside of the norm and express views that I consider to be important but which are not the type of thing prevalently expressed or even widely considered in the day-to-day society in which we live?<br />
<br />
Why do I choose to take opposing stands to what is expounded to be the true version of events by supposedly expert and influential opinion?<br />
<br />
Why do I even open myself to ridicule and criticism by trying to get people to see that the world that they/we know and are reasonably, to a greater or lesser extent, comfortable with and have expectations that this same world will continue in much the same way purely for our convenience for as long as we would like it to do that, at some not too far off point cease to match our expectations?<br />
<br />
Why don't I just keep on planting and gardening, simply enjoying life and ignoring what I see as going on around me? And if I see a future where life will become difficult, dangerous, and very likely deadly, with little prospect of continuing comfort and ease through technology, economic prosperity and their accompanying conveniences, why don't I either end it all for myself personally (you know what I mean, without actually saying it) or join the inevitable rise of lawless mayhem that is coming and go out with a grand bang of looting, rape, brutality and slaughter for as long as it lasts?<br />
<br />
I am not alone in considering these things by any means, but it does take someone not too caught up in past tradition or the glamour (in the sense of blinded by illusion) of the rightness, entitlement and inevitability of and to a modern, civilised, cosseted and hugely privileged beyond any previous moment in history, way of life, in order to see it clearly enough to be able to stand outside of it for a moment and actually look at it dispassionately and objectively.<br />
<br />
Such thoughts were recently raised in a comment to John Michael Greer's (I keep wanting to call him John-Michael Howson but that, while it creates an interesting mental image, would not do at all) Archdruid Report blog. The commenter opined, and I paraphrase here, that with the coming devastation that many expect and others don't even want to consider, why bother going on, since a life without technological innovation and scientific discovery would not be worth living?<br />
<br />
JMG, the Archdruid (yes, he is a real Archdruid, if such expressions of authority and learning have any actual value, but he is a quite learned and well read person), based his latest post on explaining a few things around this conjecture and the interplay of factual and value judgements. A good job he did of it too, if I may say, with the inclusion of quite a number of interesting or provocative thoughts, to the extent that I recommend having a read of it here: <a href="http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/facts-values-and-dark-beer.html">http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/facts-values-and-dark-beer.html</a> . <br />
<br />
I just want to highlight a particular quote from that blog post since it also sums up pretty accurately the way I think. It was also the inspiration for this, my present post on Meanderings. JMG said:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="background-color: #4c1130;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></span>"As for me—well, all things considered, I find that being alive beats the stuffing out of the alternative, and that’s true even though I live in a troubled age in which scientific and technological progress show every sign of grinding to a halt in the near future, and in which warfare, injustice, famine, pestilence, and the collapse of widely held beliefs are matters of common experience. The notion that life has to justify itself to me seems, if I may be frank, faintly silly, and so does the comparable claim that I have to justify my existence to it, or to anyone else. Here I am; I did not make the world; quite the contrary, the world made me, and put me in the irreducibly personal situation in which I find myself. Given that I’m here, where and when I happen to be, there are any number of things that I can choose to do, or not do; and it so happens that one of the things I choose to do is to prepare, and help others prepare, for the long decline of industrial civilization and the coming of the dark age that will follow it."<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="background-color: #4c1130;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span></span> </blockquote>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-39404446783311380572014-11-09T18:59:00.004+11:002014-11-09T19:39:05.358+11:00At Last I Can Garden AgainFor one reason or another I have not been able to garden for around 18 months now, waiting for my previous residence to sell, expecting to have to move, moving to a new home, settling in and adjusting. <br />
<br />
I moved to a new (to me) home six months or so back. The property is completely fenced in and is rurally located. The house is surrounded by a sea of grass with lots of mature shade trees. I posted some general pictures of the property earlier <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/a-fresh-start.html">here</a>, to give some idea of what it looked like before I started <strike>meddling</strike> gardening on this new landscape.<br />
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Grass, grass everywhere. The prospect of spending much of my days cutting grass over and over again did not sit well with me but the possibility of doing something useful with that land did excite, so I always had the intention of reducing the area covered by that useless (unless you have grazing animals) plant as much as possible without upsetting the land owners. I have not actually met those people but I do occasionally talk with their farm workers (cattlemen and a vineyardier, or whatever a person who looks after grape vines is called).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZTNSNVFb37h_h0nbXuN6QQoYECleZ30JSaC4deGaVT2UKITHH7vWj8-2UpIU98A8cjcTR7WP14a9C7U8tVBi9XTiKVp1DoT3DGIPnzfyyT-AyXbPeFavf9Ni58iYZnYQ2t0D06AJWYYl/s1600/IMAG0193.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZTNSNVFb37h_h0nbXuN6QQoYECleZ30JSaC4deGaVT2UKITHH7vWj8-2UpIU98A8cjcTR7WP14a9C7U8tVBi9XTiKVp1DoT3DGIPnzfyyT-AyXbPeFavf9Ni58iYZnYQ2t0D06AJWYYl/s1600/IMAG0193.jpg" height="213" title="Once a vegetable garden. Will be again soon." width="320" /></a>With this plan in mind, I searched the grounds for any places where it looked like some form of gardening had been in progress at an earlier time. There were a number of such places, which had all been allowed to overgrow in recent times. They ranged from a single Yucca plant in a corner between the boundary fence and shed (not sure what the point of that was) through a number of straggly, dead or dying fruit trees scattered around, to a couple of three square metre vegetable plots (identified by the quality of the underlying soil and buried plant labels, mentioned <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/gardening-from-scratch.html">here</a>) and what had at some stage been a nice rose garden but had obviously been roughly driven over by some tractor-towed farm mowing machine.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxi2DhwhoDgGCw5aJXr2hwgyKVLWW0hygbs9c4fBatC2NIHOsqf4OrhJ6CoJO4q_PGf_SR6G9Xgj7nbXHEwVsyuyUbIbxALvaaDggVYy2kMXBZdWoR6J3FLOg9F1qAWvvmbWRac__GRXH/s1600/IMAG0216.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPxi2DhwhoDgGCw5aJXr2hwgyKVLWW0hygbs9c4fBatC2NIHOsqf4OrhJ6CoJO4q_PGf_SR6G9Xgj7nbXHEwVsyuyUbIbxALvaaDggVYy2kMXBZdWoR6J3FLOg9F1qAWvvmbWRac__GRXH/s1600/IMAG0216.jpg" height="133" title="Partly re-dug rose garden." width="200" /></a>I decided to reuse the rose garden and while digging it over, to remove the grass covering, in addition to the two straggly roses remaining above the surface, found another four plants and a number of dead ones. I also found buried in the soil a pair of still usable secateurs and a number of children's toys.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9Q7hLcbpgWqrFihfoIqXqYKBnienBhyZVB40VYypjXJQSlbZGQY_2glAvPLf4_lhYOUS0mperUUPmGW1x7GL2VcOFknxbTe628JYEfhvPgLjXoAMu9n-frLloO6mgiwmCK2TDPbNxHwO/s1600/IMAG0220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9Q7hLcbpgWqrFihfoIqXqYKBnienBhyZVB40VYypjXJQSlbZGQY_2glAvPLf4_lhYOUS0mperUUPmGW1x7GL2VcOFknxbTe628JYEfhvPgLjXoAMu9n-frLloO6mgiwmCK2TDPbNxHwO/s1600/IMAG0220.jpg" height="133" title="Once buried secateurs. Still sharp." width="200" /></a>That operation has now been completed and the shape of the area follows a design that is entirely mine. A small area of grass has been kept jutting into the garden space purely because I liked the grass at that spot and also I plan to add a bird bath and/or feeding table later and maybe some form of seat to provide a feeling of being surrounded by shrubbery.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqY2n2YMBjWGKLa8bsDoMINjLEv9qwwlNXL5_YdRlem3zJCCp7CnY_Wdk26cmCfpsJ0m9h88cX3pB36RYx8DzPRYTtlNOU8LqOq0bMi7N9rnLyULBFxC5fr0wnCW0VZ_06KUPAOTmthG-7/s1600/IMAG0219.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqY2n2YMBjWGKLa8bsDoMINjLEv9qwwlNXL5_YdRlem3zJCCp7CnY_Wdk26cmCfpsJ0m9h88cX3pB36RYx8DzPRYTtlNOU8LqOq0bMi7N9rnLyULBFxC5fr0wnCW0VZ_06KUPAOTmthG-7/s1600/IMAG0219.jpg" height="213" title="Rose garden completely uncovered. The shape is entirely my design." width="320" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJUQ62T3V_TwzSOS3j8sdhFnWFq-Z5aKnEzH8vM9AX7f4D5r5D286YjDo5Dt28Z9mN0y7Gr7JiVq4y0JCI0B3DAkAejxPHiFSeYgDH_IHf1vVweicTaBFhY1hCrJsSzIv761yXbwsgU4x/s1600/IMAG0232.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJUQ62T3V_TwzSOS3j8sdhFnWFq-Z5aKnEzH8vM9AX7f4D5r5D286YjDo5Dt28Z9mN0y7Gr7JiVq4y0JCI0B3DAkAejxPHiFSeYgDH_IHf1vVweicTaBFhY1hCrJsSzIv761yXbwsgU4x/s1600/IMAG0232.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>The rose garden (I keep referring to it as that but it is intended to be much more eventually) has now been covered with straw for moisture retention and partly planted out with other shrubs including some fruiting varieties. This is still a work in progress but at least for now allows me to continue with other tasks. <br />
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Slightly out of order, because I had earlier cleared and covered the two vegetable plots mentioned earlier, and had marked out an area around them some 21 metres x 4.5 metres to be fenced off as a garden area. The fencing serves two purposes. It marks off a place where there will be no grass and it will hopefully dissuade prowling Wombats from entering there. At least I do not have to worry about Kangaroos and Wallabies here. <br />
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In the meantime the grass has regrown around the cleared areas and within the partially completed fence. I will go into more detail on what I intend to do in that area in some future post. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR6Og8LrDx7ZbGlSfp_zDGlGOQ_IOcyVmqjhQSADF5wmrzfwilp0Mqp40fYdZJZ4uPaFWtm9QOpLalfPNk1QiXazw2XY9qL5rZN-QrPDEsJoKrctcS5BtFo63BLgLwwIhVSVR4tZAtzHLP/s1600/IMAG0226.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR6Og8LrDx7ZbGlSfp_zDGlGOQ_IOcyVmqjhQSADF5wmrzfwilp0Mqp40fYdZJZ4uPaFWtm9QOpLalfPNk1QiXazw2XY9qL5rZN-QrPDEsJoKrctcS5BtFo63BLgLwwIhVSVR4tZAtzHLP/s1600/IMAG0226.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
Also in the meantime I have planted a number of fruit trees outside the fenced garden area. Four apple varieties, a Nashi pear and two cross-pollinating Hazelnut varieties. The apples are all heirloom varieties, a Cox's Orange Pippin, Egremont Russet, a Snow apple and a Jonathan which should act as cross-pollinator for the others.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5klDoaj5A4AsVVdQckxzy48WSo-7JB_oMR67sJqv6lb7rbR-RV4_A3Bu9Hzg2Jy2Van3zLhHXMkDJ9R8OrC9hm4apb936l8xKCzMqj8t2akhnYyu0pW2DWevv5U8v1CO-hexRZ1NR-ax/s1600/IMAG0223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw5klDoaj5A4AsVVdQckxzy48WSo-7JB_oMR67sJqv6lb7rbR-RV4_A3Bu9Hzg2Jy2Van3zLhHXMkDJ9R8OrC9hm4apb936l8xKCzMqj8t2akhnYyu0pW2DWevv5U8v1CO-hexRZ1NR-ax/s1600/IMAG0223.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjePsTz4W88jiJcQ8HfSpzgLQqO7IxLIsGKldYKSrWnitbJNBcrt59xrQTsxPND2KYTCqT20bpaC8rVK6qwmZO6ZFbjXQXgtxxLYV9Splen07SkOBwtLO5mPaCY6oNX9_5MM4Y7CF3w_-/s1600/IMAG0224.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSjePsTz4W88jiJcQ8HfSpzgLQqO7IxLIsGKldYKSrWnitbJNBcrt59xrQTsxPND2KYTCqT20bpaC8rVK6qwmZO6ZFbjXQXgtxxLYV9Splen07SkOBwtLO5mPaCY6oNX9_5MM4Y7CF3w_-/s1600/IMAG0224.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a><br />
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I intend to mulch as much of this orchard area as I can reasonably do, again as a means of grass reduction. I also intend to interplant other useful shrubs within this area.<br />
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What about a herb garden? I had already thought of that and while clearing the rose garden I dumped some of the unwanted grass sods or clumps, as you prefer, underneath the kitchen window and fairly close to the back door of the house. I formed a mound from this material and covered it with grass cuttings from my scything activities. This was left for a few weeks for the grass to die off.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2Hu2BY721jvZR821EINA1E40bciFI7xYPCOEV4_0C391mRCod-x-JgJ5gL2X3g8fLNwgdtHetdX8ifyFSxsVYYj8N9D4iB28vfVPM_oQz5q-ytU34WgU1ipJqSipZ0byxvufXamlaXp_/s1600/IMAG0244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2Hu2BY721jvZR821EINA1E40bciFI7xYPCOEV4_0C391mRCod-x-JgJ5gL2X3g8fLNwgdtHetdX8ifyFSxsVYYj8N9D4iB28vfVPM_oQz5q-ytU34WgU1ipJqSipZ0byxvufXamlaXp_/s1600/IMAG0244.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4fPbz_uWSHAlXD1IUcZPc14PAv4q6MY0QNW2oMKElwgF7EcJ8ZigR4JUKlvmz9gylNi0shnj7yatRVPvKx_sNsuMnZUZi1uqv7kmel4ExsaBk0KXCLs5PFvhWAQSq-nOI57xVf4gtpldE/s1600/IMAG0244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>Next, I got to do something that I have waited around a year and a half to do. At my previous home there was a spare garbage bin which I wanted to turn into a compost maker. I added a tap near the bottom of the bin to drain off any excess liquid (to use on the garden of course) and started to place any kitchen waste in the bin, covering each layer of waste material with a little straw and adding a little waste water to prevent smells. You should never compost meat or meat by-products but that wasn't a problem for me as I don't consume any meat.<br />
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Not all of the waste recently added had rotted of course, so I removed that part separately and kept it to place back in the empty bin to continue its good work for next time. The rest of the contents of the bin are glorious compost which I think my herbs will love. I added a layer of this compost material to the herb mound.</span></div>
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That process was started six months ago, so some of it was ready to use about now. I started to remove the top material onto a new pile next to the old one until I came to a part of the pile that looked like I could use it.</span></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">A layer of this material was added to the growing mound.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7y89A7XoMOwxuMmygYq6b9DUTgsjxeaR0pGcOaBSn2n4oBO57pplw8JWSfwrJb0PveWbfuk_BcBjleCECyLl9s7mwDRO5AtzoGRsUXwefws_8ow4pDQkwk9AFWSXtHRFjyAWY-fTBiWmW/s1600/IMAG0255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7y89A7XoMOwxuMmygYq6b9DUTgsjxeaR0pGcOaBSn2n4oBO57pplw8JWSfwrJb0PveWbfuk_BcBjleCECyLl9s7mwDRO5AtzoGRsUXwefws_8ow4pDQkwk9AFWSXtHRFjyAWY-fTBiWmW/s1600/IMAG0255.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK6jdmJUKvNU_fTB1cmB65VfQQEvL4TxMVbdf7ReE97DRwmJCFjqPjaLygSfaZGsoAW1Bh8kPy4gGuTG1xJsATxpCUnaF16So23hKMt8gcSSOMFHYBma8zDXyha2g_Uh0p9fGO0EBOI3ot/s1600/IMAG0255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span class="text_exposed_show">Now, I wanted to add some good organic soil. I mixed a 25 ltr bag of organic garden soil with a 25 litre bag of vegetable and herb mix and found that this was enough to provide the mound with a thin covering all over. I think this is all that is needed as the good topsoil from around the dead grass roots together with all of the other additions should provide a good growing medium for the herbs. In any case each plant will be set into additional organic soil as it is positioned on the mound.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Finally I added the ubiquitous layer of straw, gave it all a watering since no rain is forecast near term and will leave it for a few days to settle before planting out. </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I have quite a number of herbs and other plants waiting for a spot somewhere, including a couple of varieties of Rhubarb currently sitting on top of a plant pot.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzoIDkLGtxP1GAJ-9JhgTY73Sa1PRD1fLsZ3xpiAFanaujuS2mmQHqBOoIBgOuyPYokETLRy0aJADtzAHbB0LNqbuVVBZQr1-lLeG4uZdogNOl-1pbe4XZxsPZwy-CTnMBAJKjzpG9OJ43/s1600/IMAG0237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzoIDkLGtxP1GAJ-9JhgTY73Sa1PRD1fLsZ3xpiAFanaujuS2mmQHqBOoIBgOuyPYokETLRy0aJADtzAHbB0LNqbuVVBZQr1-lLeG4uZdogNOl-1pbe4XZxsPZwy-CTnMBAJKjzpG9OJ43/s1600/IMAG0237.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC-pT6faGI7OwaIofTIm7MHVuoFHeqvl-wjlfVPDqaItvlxI3gtcZOMucwi5pbKWDUykAkL3JBx6NRRN8FKVVvur_rWY5rRrCLb4ZpRY-HwaCJX6NVvALDVF_dhGW_mab9qofPxvCIZQHr/s1600/IMAG0237.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span class="text_exposed_show"> </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">What else has been going on here? Well, I have been visited by a number of King Parrots who seemed to take a fancy to the Sunflower seeds that I offered to them. They would call out to me from the verandah fence and one cheeky character actually clung to the side of my window and peeked in to see if I was there.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I have learned that the birds with the red heads are the males and the green headed ones are either female or the younger birds.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I have also finally got my 2.5kW gas powered generator to start, after replacing the dead battery it came with by a new motor cycle battery. It works very well but I can't yet say what the consumption may be like.</span></div>
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<span class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" tabindex="0"><span class="hasCaption">It runs on either LPG (Propane) or Natural Gas, plus it is capable of using a biogas supply if available,which was a selling point for me with an eye to the future when there may be no available LPG or Natural Gas any longer available. I didn't want a petrol generator since I think that fairly soon petro<span class="text_exposed_show">l will be either too expensive to run such tools as this, in short supply and restricted to military, emergency services and possibly food distribution purposes, or not available at all. That is also why I have taken to using a scythe.<br />
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The generator has electric start (from the on-board battery), a 240v AC mains outlet, a 12v DC outlet, a voltmeter display, an isolating circuit breaker for emergency cut-off and a usage counter in hours for controlling the servicing cycle which I think will be simple enough for even me to do.<br />
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It is fairly portable, having two wheels at one end and rubber feet at the other. The generator itself weighs around 50kg but I can move it around using the folding handle in one hand while carrying the 9kg gas bottle in the other hand.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">This has now enabled me to supplement my scything activity with electric mower power. I have owned an electric mower for quite a few years but while I was living at my previous home I had nowhere to put it and it lived outside, subject to all that the weather decided to throw at it. I was surprised that it still worked after that and perhaps as was to be expected it lasted about 45 minutes before it reached a sad end to its useful life. </span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Still, I got some mowing done and maybe I can re-purpose the base of the thing as a trailer cart to carry my gas bottle behind the generator. Add that to the to do list.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">I have been bitten by the bug now and will have to get a new one. Even though that goes against my philosophy of leaving behind the consumer society as far as possible. I have to be realistic about my age and physical capabilities looking ahead. I intend to continue to scythe as much as I can, both to maintain and increase my fitness and to nurse as much life out of the mower as possible. </span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">machine, the corded model, since I do not trust battery powered tools. I am just waiting for it to arrive. With 50 metres of power cord and my generator, I will be able to mow in any part of the block that I wish with relative ease.</span></div>
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<span class="text_exposed_show">And so, hopefully the story will continue. This is just the beginning.</span></div>
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<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-24036997899322901852014-09-23T16:40:00.001+10:002014-09-23T17:19:05.271+10:00He For She. Dig It!Of all the things I have ever blogged here, I think this UN speech by this 'Harry Potter girl' is perhaps the one stand-out moment for me personally.<br />
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A long way from Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series, Emma Watson demonstrates a maturation and wisdom far beyond her 24 years. Bravo, girl.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Ug6adjb8u88?rel=0" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".h.1:3:1:$comment100003311638585=2626640777456304=263_626648310788884:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".h.1:3:1:$comment100003311638585=2626640777456304=263_626648310788884:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".h.1:3:1:$comment100003311638585=2626640777456304=263_626648310788884:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$text0:0:$0:0">Men, take a stand, show your commitment at </span><a class="" data-reactid=".h.1:3:1:$comment100003311638585=2626640777456304=263_626648310788884:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$range0:0" dir="ltr" href="http://www.heforshe.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.heforshe.org/</a><span data-reactid=".h.1:3:1:$comment100003311638585=2626640777456304=263_626648310788884:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.$end:0:$0:0">.</span></span></span><br />
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At the time of making this commitment I was the 51,860th man across the world to do so, the 3,620th man in Australia. C'mon, Make a difference.<br />
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<i>Note: Unfortunately this video should have been cut at around the 13.00 minute mark. The remainder is just a repeat of the first half of the speech. </i><br />
<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-53594339534165701102014-08-21T18:37:00.001+10:002014-08-21T18:55:10.651+10:00A Pleasant And Unexpected Surprise<h2>
Every day is a good day...</h2>
<b>...but some days are really special. </b> Today was one of those days.<br />
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It is now well over three months since I moved to my new address, and I have settled into some sort of routine. I like routine. As long as it is good, progressive, purposeful routine, it adds structure and framework to the day. One of my daily routines (weekdays only, though in my world it is hard sometimes to know if it is a weekday or not) is, at around 11.30am, to stroll down to the mailbox (which for some obscure reason is situated on the opposite side of the road, making a round trip of some 150m) to see if any mail has been left for me. That turns into a particularly joyful occasion on those days when I find one of those little green and white post office cards there, indicating that a parcel is awaiting my collection at Yea LPO.<br />
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As I said earlier, today was one of those days. So, in my little car, I trotted off to Yea to pick up my parcel and buy bread plus a vegetarian quiche and something nice for afternoon tea (my routine, in recent times, does not include any regular spot for baking).<br />
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I was expecting two parcels to arrive about now and I was hoping this would be the dozen <a href="http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/OTYwWDEyODA=/z/1k4AAOSwRLZTz-tV/$_57.JPG">hand-crafted wooden arrows</a> I have ordered from <a href="http://youtu.be/3KMqOTAJax8">CAS Custom Arrows (Greyarcher appears to be delighted with his package)</a> in the US (I do a little archery, which I may blog about at some stage). But no, it wasn't that parcel, although from USPS tracking I know it arrived in Australia on August 17.<br />
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The other package I was expecting was a seed order from <a href="http://myhomeharvest.com.au/">My Home Harvest</a> <a href="http://my-home-harvest.myshopify.com/">online shop</a>. I can't remember how I came in contact with My Home Harvest but a week or so ago I had ordered three different sets each of three different packets of seeds. I already have lots of seeds, some saved from my plantings at the previous place I lived in and some not yet planted from earlier years, but I needed more. Even though I had only a week earlier received 33 packets of seed varieties in an order from The Diggers Club, which is my usual source, I believe that maintaining a collection of heritage/organic seeds will prove invaluable in the coming years of food shortages brought on by economic, climate, population, and resource depletion upheavals. Forewarned is forearmed, if acted on. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmST7TulHJ8_Uj_zK-0XLKP0T70bNau9MOk2pe20lYPhLtlE_A3uz6B0kvg2Q2klxy777pazNdmXfJWRG1DpS9sfu6ck8gmi-unqk2oRXvpduMKusu9L2dxpNjLqfKFSbYMVZl35nP6iwJ/s1600/IMAG0197.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmST7TulHJ8_Uj_zK-0XLKP0T70bNau9MOk2pe20lYPhLtlE_A3uz6B0kvg2Q2klxy777pazNdmXfJWRG1DpS9sfu6ck8gmi-unqk2oRXvpduMKusu9L2dxpNjLqfKFSbYMVZl35nP6iwJ/s1600/IMAG0197.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a>I would never buy commercially produced seeds from a nursery, supermarket or similar. All the seeds that I purchase are heritage varieties and/or organically grown seeds from trusted sources. Seeds are vitally important to our welfare and none of us would be here if it were not for food propagated from viable seeds. Since there are global trends to copyright all seed varieties and invest all production and ownership of seeds in a few giant global corporations, which are the same businesses that own and produce all of the chemical fertilisers and pesticides used in global food production, the fate of humanity rests on these entities who have proven many times to not have your and my best interests at heart. They are driven by profit and are owned and operated by unscrupulous people. I do not want my future food consumption to be in any part reliant on these organisations. <br />
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Anyway, that aside, my parcel was in a sizeable Post Office carton, which struck me as odd for a few seed packets. Yet it didn't feel very heavy. Imagine my surprise and delight, when I opened it at home to find, handwritten on the invoice in addition to my requested seeds "plus the Felco prize" and another parcel wrapped in red tissue paper which contained two pairs of Felco secateurs, <a href="http://myhomeharvest.com.au/get-growing/expert-advice-faqs/felco-tools-for-the-home-gardener">the Felco 300 and the Felco 310</a> . I had no expectation of such a windfall and there was no mention of such an opportunity when ordering. I consider myself very, very, lucky, and whether I am the only one to have received them, or not (I have no idea), I am extremely grateful to <a href="http://myhomeharvest.com.au/meet-tash">Tash</a> for the gesture. Felco tools are said to be among the best in the world.<br />
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Consider taking a look at the wealth of advice, information and resources available at <a href="http://myhomeharvest.com.au/">My Home Harvest</a>.<br />
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-4793656212522645792014-08-14T18:16:00.000+10:002014-08-14T18:23:01.037+10:00Gardening From Scratch<br />
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I have not Meandered here for a while. Well, it has been a cold, wet, windy Winter and there is a lot of interesting things going on in the world at the moment which have kept my <a href="http://notsomethingelse.wordpress.com/">keyboard running hot</a>, plus with a plethora of good Kindle books to read and the introduction of the new Western Front armies in <a href="http://www.companyofheroes.com/en_us/">Company of Heroes 2</a>, I have actually been quite busy ...just not outside.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijTWVXnM27YjNMpYDjZvJ0oLBjrZa2f-I8GcMO0vKN93WrjCUo_elzaHcbQoiWtdiaO9SIhBWxnNlR2vkTUlyg6SvRhFvi4xhEkyrLnPZe8rvZIPIlKcSZYjlBjsoBr6ctLSWS3LPkmwKs/s1600/IMAG0171.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijTWVXnM27YjNMpYDjZvJ0oLBjrZa2f-I8GcMO0vKN93WrjCUo_elzaHcbQoiWtdiaO9SIhBWxnNlR2vkTUlyg6SvRhFvi4xhEkyrLnPZe8rvZIPIlKcSZYjlBjsoBr6ctLSWS3LPkmwKs/s1600/IMAG0171.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8LbDh5_Qr5Al17QBNCu3hjOkQZX4hU__zqM270WZWIGP1UG1B_skujENDSeFxEOFyRqBlbIQV2735EXj83jwxb5KdxU42ZWZOvTMDQ79PF31j8ZJozj34F_-nB9ssYK8vM3Jbvun2p-Si/s1600/IMAG0176.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8LbDh5_Qr5Al17QBNCu3hjOkQZX4hU__zqM270WZWIGP1UG1B_skujENDSeFxEOFyRqBlbIQV2735EXj83jwxb5KdxU42ZWZOvTMDQ79PF31j8ZJozj34F_-nB9ssYK8vM3Jbvun2p-Si/s1600/IMAG0176.jpg" height="200" width="133" /></a>That's not quite true. I have been clearing what seems like vast expanses of grass around the house with my scythe on the days when the weather has been a little kinder, and that is progressing well. A couple of really clear, sunny days this week have helped. I am using a 65cm Austrian scythe blade, the length being known as an All-rounder. It is a good length for most jobs that a scythe might be used for. Since deciding that using a scythe is something that I want to and can do, and which fits in with my philosophy of gathering mainly non-powered tools ready for the day when that will be the only way to perform work tasks, I have recently bought two more scythe blades for future, and more specific use. One is a 75cm field blade, the longer sweep being beneficial for mowing large open areas, plus a 40cm veggie blade for close work around growing plants. I have yet to use them, or even sharpen them properly, but if you don't have them, then you don't have the option. That is another part of my philosophy for the future.<br />
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Today I discovered a little garden over near the fence. Actually I already knew it was there, I just hadn't gotten around to clearing that area yet. But today I did, and discovered some partially buried seedling trays which confirmed for me that it must have been a little garden at some stage. It is the only area of the land surrounding the house that shows any signs of cultivation except for a couple of straggly rose bushes at the front of the house plus a couple of fruit trees. <br />
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This is where I will start my new gardening adventures in what is basically a clean unpainted canvas. Can't wait to get going. I did do a little digging today to see what the soil is like in this little 3m x 3m square bounded by sleepers, and was please to find that it is good and clean under the grass cover, down to a spade blade length and it is replete with worms. A good sign. I have left the grass uncut as I intend to dig this area over completely very soon.<br />
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I do have other plans that have been formulating while I have been scything and observing, but more of that another time.<br />
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I was standing at the end of my driveway earlier in the week, something I have done several times now, being impressed and awed by the beauty that surrounds me. I have never had a camera with me on these occasions, but I did today (just my phone cam), so I took a short panaramic video of the sight. I keep forgetting that I have a Gopro and will have to find it and retake the view at a better time of the day when to Sun is behind or overhead. Anyway, here it is, for what it is.<br />
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-78189779623672982742014-05-23T00:31:00.001+10:002014-05-23T11:35:36.977+10:00A Fresh Start?<h3>
Old News</h3>
I am a little late in delivering this post so for me this is old news, but a picture needs to be completed.<br />
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Some time ago I wrote a post here advising that my life was about to be<a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/a-door-is-closing.html"> temporarily disrupted by the need to move home</a>, to ...who knows where? I made somewhat of a big deal of 'doors closing' and an expectation of 'other doors opening', though I really did have no more than vague ideas of what I really wanted, nor what opportunities might be available, nor where (regionally) I might end up living. I was open to, and at the mercy of, whatever market forces, or the gods of fate and fortune, may have in store for me.<br />
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As is my wont, I didn't bother sitting down to make lists of where, why, what, how, who or when. Well, not on paper anyway. That is what the brain is for. At least that is how I usually operate. Thinking. Making mental notes.<br />
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I am also not big on tripping around, eating up the miles, wearing out shoe leather or tyre rubber, looking at things. That is what the internet is for. And very good use of it I made.<br />
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I quickly realised that there was not very much on offer, locally, ie. in the same hamlet in which I was currently residing. I also quickly realised that there were not very many options open to me at the price (rental) that I had been paying or wanted to pay in the future. Nor did any of the available options fit my wishlist of expectations for a place that I could call home. Visions of me sleeping in my tent or going on the road in my little car crept into my re-imagination of thoughts from times past. I began to look further afield. Tasmania, Dunolly, Mansfield, and I saw (still on the internet) places at the right price which in other circumstances I would have jumped at instantly. A beautiful, newly renovated little cottage with solar power and solar heating right on the edge of Devonport. A large straw bale house, equally sustainably equipped, with more than adequate land but on the Dunolly flood plain. A gorgeous, strong, very old country home with ready made orchard up near Mansfield. There were a few other places, far afield, that I could have happily aimed for, but a stern rebuke from my daughter about moving any further away meant that I had to close off such ideas as these. For now at any rate.<br />
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This left me really with only one option that I could consider, without compromising my wishlist of ideals, my comfort factors and my preferred financial limits. Could this be the door I was looking for, to providentially open for me? It didn't look promising. There were hurdles to cross.<br />
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<h3>
Good News </h3>
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Suffice to say that without any unpalatably difficult, dramatic episodes or debilitating worries, or even excessive effort other than the actual job of shifting from one place to the next, I am now settling into my newly adopted home with some degree of satisfaction and gratitude. Not to mention, Ah say, not ta mention,<span style="color: red;">*</span> the hope that I will not have to repeat the process any time soon. I am looking forward to a nice long stay here.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">* </span><i>Imitating <a href="http://youtu.be/-LCsiWL6gn0">Foghorn Leghorn</a></i><br />
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So, what about those hurdles I spoke about? The first was that the owner would not permit any inspection or even entry to the property until I was holding a fully completed and approved Rental Application in my sticky little hands. The owner I was told is a business, so I was not dealing with an individual or a family but some impersonal entity. The agent did tell me however, that the owner was looking for a long term tenant. That was a plus factor.<br />
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Things have changed in the rental market since I last tested the waters three years ago. This time I was required to jump through hoops just to get the application form filled out and accepted. It was necessary for me to obtain references, payment ledgers and details of all of my accomodation history going back to the late '80s. I am not sure if this is a legal necessity or just an over-zealous real estate agent intent on protecting their reputation. Anyway, it took me a couple of attempts, many phone calls and emails, in order to satisfy them and eventually obtain the owner's approval and get to see and go through the property for myself.<br />
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With my feet now standing on the property for the first time I could see that it ticked a number of my boxes but there were also some disappointments too, chiefly that a piece of land to the back of the property which housed some empty chicken runs, another small animal shed, and an area that I thought would be the best place to start growing produce, was not included in the lease. I think the reason for that may be that while the rest of the property was well fenced and gated, this area would have needed some investment in extra fencing on one side.<br />
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While I felt that I could be happy to live there I couldn't bring myself to make a decision on that day because of the reduced expectation from the unavailable land and a few other things which I may talk about at some stage. However, having slept on it I called the agent the next day and set the wheels in motion to move there as soon as possible.<br />
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<br /><i><a href="http://youtu.be/-LCsiWL6gn0"></a></i>
<h3>
A Fresh Start </h3>
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That is probably more than enough information at the moment so I will just describe my new home a little and load up some pictures.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj025xDaES9ApdR9rxseX7ni_vdirt9Y5GPyYNHUSrN_1Ax28exWoPWeiGTHpPcbN3DTbuQzqSulm4jLyJL8_r7WHrVTPVkURe3P_tkwu4XkIKMabktX9n-TbEifoqCo1iaBEA43U55rilJ/s1600/IMAG0135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj025xDaES9ApdR9rxseX7ni_vdirt9Y5GPyYNHUSrN_1Ax28exWoPWeiGTHpPcbN3DTbuQzqSulm4jLyJL8_r7WHrVTPVkURe3P_tkwu4XkIKMabktX9n-TbEifoqCo1iaBEA43U55rilJ/s1600/IMAG0135.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
This is a fairly old building which stands on part of a ~1500 acre farming property and was for some time the residence of the farm manager. The owners of the property lived in a big house, not visible from here, just over a hill. Some years ago the farm property changed hands to be owned by a business and now the manager lives up in the big house.<br />
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Most of the farm is given over to cattle pasture but just over 100 acres is a vineyard that provides a variety of grape types to local and international wineries. <br />
The vineyard is adjacent, but not close, to one side of the land I lease. On the other major side is part of the pasture land. Below is a picture of some of my neighbouring beasts on an early misty morning.<br />
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The house has three bedrooms, one of which now houses my gym equipment which I haven't in the previous three years had the room to spread out sufficient to make it useful, nor really the desire to use it. I am hoping that will change a little now.<br />
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Just over a third of the house is taken up by the kitchen and lounge room which have been opened up to form basically a single living area. The kitchen area is large enough to also house my 6-8 seater dining table with more than adequate space to still operate as a kitchen. This cosy, open living area is one thing that sold me on the property. I still smile and feel grateful every time I enter there. Nothing is new of course, but it has a nice feel to it. Feels like a home.<br />
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Adjacent to the house is a three bay agricultural shed which means that my long-suffering little A160 now has a roof over its head and I have a huge area to store all my stuff out of the weather. There is also a lockable shed attached.<br />
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My water supply comes from rooftop rainwater run-off stored in two 25,000 litre tanks so I should hopefully never run short.<br />
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Another thing that sold me on the place is that there is no-one else around. My nearest neighbours are some 300 metres away in any direction. I am happy to be living practically on a hilltop instead of down in the bottom of a gully. Hopefully any winter frosts up here will be very light. Happy thought: I may even try to grow some coffee again. Whether by accident or design I do not know, but the house has been built facing due north with most glass on that side and practically no glass to the south side.<br />
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From the shed the driveway curves around for some seventy metres to the property gate and then by a shared driveway with the vineyard another forty metres or so to the road.<br />
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Even set back at that distance I can hear traffic passing by, something that I will have to get used to. It was usually so quiet where I came from. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCfXTEnbDaYq3PoDpjkDySuWqPS3s6YxjO4iYMhbr2Wau7zK-fHE5YA4Aj20i_9s0tz1kUqOJbfgHXw3f0uzPTApKlO6rklrEfKVSPMPNw7HWqVLijSRwrX6JPfr290ju2q8MWmertSrIa/s1600/IMAG0138.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCfXTEnbDaYq3PoDpjkDySuWqPS3s6YxjO4iYMhbr2Wau7zK-fHE5YA4Aj20i_9s0tz1kUqOJbfgHXw3f0uzPTApKlO6rklrEfKVSPMPNw7HWqVLijSRwrX6JPfr290ju2q8MWmertSrIa/s1600/IMAG0138.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a><br />
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The photographs show the quite extensive grass area that I have undertaken to keep in order. I fully intend to reduce this area by introducing fruit and vegetable gardens as time goes by. I will talk more about this and the grass problem another time.<br />
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For now, I am just happy to be settled again, somewhere I think I will be happy. Well, getting settled anyway. Lots of things are still in boxes just now.<br />
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<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-10217125244369605032014-03-29T22:51:00.001+11:002014-03-30T16:46:34.170+11:00One Consequence Of There Being No God<div style="text-align: center;">
A short, but I hope original thought. With apologies to whoever owns it if it is not.</div>
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The following just came into my head and, at the risk of attracting critical contrary opinion, I thought I would like to share it.<br />
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<span id="goog_444630151"></span><span id="goog_444630152"></span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<b><span style="color: #660000;"><i>The only 'morality' in nature is that which we place upon ourselves. </i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000;"><i>Therefore each, perceiving life through the lens of their own thoughts, </i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000;"><i>can argue no validity for, and owns no right to, </i></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #660000;"><i>a consideration of anyone else as being 'immoral'.</i></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d;"><b>- - - : x x x : - - - </b></span></div>
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-38164167077245982112014-03-15T21:34:00.000+11:002017-01-17T19:14:25.344+11:00Teachers: life inside the exam factory - An Article From The Guardian Before I start, here is the Guardian article that induced me to write this post: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/14/teachers-life-inside-the-exam-factory?CMP=fb_gu">http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/mar/14/teachers-life-inside-the-exam-factory</a> This post is fairly unstructured because it started life as a Facebook status update that got out of hand, so I will continue in that vein.<br />
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The problems arising around education cannot be laid at the feet of teachers. Teachers are fighting a losing battle against the societal need and goal of producing a population of complicit, unquestioning, consumption units, willingly led into a life of induced 'happiness' and provided with just sufficient means to continue buying stuff without any real sense of purpose, in order to allow to continue the growth of that society ad infinitum.<br />
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Those students who display tendencies to break that mold are either pushed out of the system and banished into a life where they will inevitably end up incarcerated and no longer a visible problem, tolerated and allowed to pass through the system by manipulation of records and thus become virtually unemployable except at very basic levels but can still act as consumers, or are trapped into debt through higher education and still meaningless employment but of sufficient complexity to keep them quiet, occupied and complacent consumers. A very few are selected to become society's 'helpers' and 'policy directors'.<br />
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Most of that societal induction and indoctrination goes on unchecked outside of the classrooms and influence of the education system. What chance do even the most dedicated teachers have of 'reaching' and 'influencing' students to expect something more from life? Very little. Their influence is fast becoming restricted to assisting their charges to better 'fit in' to the pattern and so gain the most that they can from a highly structured life. The ranks of dedicated teachers are themselves becoming thinner as time goes by because they are being replaced more and more by those who are also just products of the system and basic consumer units themselves. <br />
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I don't think there is any going back from this. Society is almost completely but not quite yet operating under the 'glamour', in the sense of a manipulative magic spell, cast by its own self-preserving agenda. <br />
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I can even pick the time when things started to turn that way. Back in 1957, I think it was, when I was starting my second year of Grammar School education in Lincoln, UK. I was twelve years old. A thinker. A dreamer. At the beginning of what was to become my most successful year of secondary education. Well, perhaps a close second to my final year, when I exceeded even my own expectations by dint of hard work and dedication. <br />
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Beginning that second year, I looked around me at the fresh faces of the new 'fags' as first year students were known at the time. I was shocked. I became worried about the future of the human race. <br />
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<i>A little aside before I continue: We, at my school, were told by the masters who taught us (they were called 'Masters' in those days and the school principal was known as the 'Head Master') that we were the 'creme de la creme' of the local intelligentsia. There were at the time four Grammar Schools in Lincoln. Two boys schools and two girls schools. The other boys school was housed in a magnificent old building and still back then took on 'boarding' pupils, kids who lived at the school during term time because their home was too far away. They of course looked down on our school whose pupils were drawn merely from the rank and file of local citizenry. We knew though who was really the 'creme de la creme'.</i><br />
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Back to my story. Yes, we were taught to think. The Masters, the good ones at least, would spend considerable periods of class time off curriculum, teaching us about life, relating their own experiences, getting us to consider and ponder how things really worked. Not merely preparing us for examinations. Not merely readying us for a life of 'work'. Not just fitting us for a 'job'.<br />
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Of course it was easier to do that in those days. The consumer society was only in it's infancy, had not yet established for itself a modus operandii, and was not then all pervading through every aspect of life. Things are very different now.<br />
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What did I see in the faces of my young successors that made me fear for our future? They were simply idiots and simpletons compared to us one year older than them. At least that is how it appeared to a twelve, almost thirteen year old who knew that he was part of the 'creme de la creme'. How could humanity's future be allowed to rest on the backs of such weak and insipid creatures as these? And what of years to come? As the gene pool weakened further, the outlook would get worse until we were all idiots running around and bumping into things, getting up as though nothing had happened and running around some more. Endlessly repeating the process until we all passed away.<br />
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Of course I cannot deny that these thoughts may have arisen partly through my own indoctrination into elite status, but we did at least come out of the process as independent thinkers and more rounded personalities than maybe we deserved to do. Or maybe we were just privileged to have obtained such a liberating education. I hope that I am not the only one of my peers who thinks that way.<br />
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It makes me sad to think that the passing of the years to my approaching sixty ninth birthday have not given me reason to alter my views on this. On the contrary, everything that I now see around me only strengthens those views.<br />
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I feel even more saddened for those, including my own children, who have been born into what is now a fully fledged self-serving and self-preserving society that has almost total control over many aspects of life of its denizens. Even though they may have been entranced so deeply into the murky depths of the 'glamour' that they cannot begin to imagine it to be that way. Human beings who are being stunted in their personal growth and blinded to the glorious panoply of experience that humanity was intended to enjoy, imbibe and blossom from. The form of control is there because without it people might become unmanageable, wanting to pursue interests that might be to the detriment of society, thinking thoughts that might lead them to question the way things are and possibly see through the thin veneer of the acceptability of societal norms.<br />
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The sausage factory that the education system is fast becoming, has been drawn, despite the valiant efforts of many of its teaching staff, into that foul system of impoverishment of human experience. <br />
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There is one bright spot in all of this. That self-serving societal system is also self-defeating because the end result of the process is an inherent instability that will eventually lead to its own demise. Bring on the day.<br />
<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-80115140502164020282014-03-02T22:44:00.000+11:002014-03-12T01:06:40.511+11:00A Door Is Closing...Just a quick diary note to record an important event. <br />
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After being placed on the housing market just about a year ago, the house I have lived in for almost three years has sold recently and I was notified a couple of days ago that I have to vacate within the next 60 days. Whilst I was hoping otherwise, I was kind of expecting this even though the new owner said he was an investor. C'est la vie.<br />
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It was not long after I moved here that I started blogging, so there are photographs of my time here scattered thoughout this site.<br />
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I was standing out on the rear deck this afternoon watching the wildlife that I have become accustomed to seeing in this hidden haven of rural tranquility. <br />
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A Currawong was bathing in the water dish that I have placed for the birds to drink from over the hot days. It is normally the sole property of Magpies but today there were also green parrots around, ground feeding. Among them appeared one of the 'ginger bunnies' for which this gully is known. She is a female. The males are the normal greyish colour.<br />
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I was thinking that I would not for much longer be able to stand and look at the hillsides towering above on either side or see the fruition of the gardens that I have created here. I have enjoyed my time here and I know that I will miss it. <br />
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However, I also know that nothing is forever and everything that happens is for the best. Time for a new adventure. Maybe I will find somewhere where the Kangaroos don't eat all the leaves from my fruit trees.<br />
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I often look back over my life of 69 years (in a couple of weeks) and realise that I have never needed to worry or struggle to find the paths that I have taken. I always trust that whatever it is that guides our lives will open the way to the next stage. I am not suggesting that this guidance is from anything outside of our 'self' (if we can only open up and marvel at the wonder of that). I always try to 'feel' for that opening and together with a modicum of research, follow my feelings. <br />
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Yes, we can 'struggle and fight to make our way in life', to 'get somewhere', to 'reach a goal', to 'take control' of the situation. It is very tempting to do that. But that is the hard way to do things and we may lead ourselves down paths from which it is very difficult to return to the one we were meant to take and we may never actually achieve that in the space of one lifetime.<br />
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But it all works out for good in the end. Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-74984817765486425822013-12-17T23:44:00.000+11:002013-12-17T23:44:50.949+11:00Lao Tzu Speaks To Our Time<h2 style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #741b47;">Translation from Tao Te Ching #39 </span></h2>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;">~ </span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>I</b>n harmony with the Tao,<br />
the sky is clear and spacious,<br />
the earth is solid and full,<br />
all creature flourish together,<br />
content with the way they are,<br />
endlessly repeating themselves,<br />
endlessly renewed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span>~ </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>When man interferes with the Tao,<br />
the sky becomes filthy,<br />
the earth becomes depleted,<br />
the equilibrium crumbles,<br />
creatures become extinct.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b> </b></span><span style="color: #4c1130;">~</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: #4c1130;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>T</b>he Master views the parts with compassion,<br />
because he understands the whole.<br />
His constant practice is humility.<br />
He doesn’t glitter like a jewel<br />
but lets himself be shaped by the Tao,<br />
as rugged and common as stone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span>~ </span></div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-44401463337565444782013-07-20T15:22:00.000+10:002013-07-20T15:23:54.832+10:00Deluge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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A couple of days ago, on Thursday, we had a fairly unusual weather event. High winds throughout the day and then just around dusk there was a torrential downpour of rain. Huge amounts of water fell in just a few minutes.<br />
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I managed to capture some footage of the aftermath which I noticed just as I was shutting up the house for the night at around 5.30pm.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzOBm7OtrHT9u9E5sDlq08tP5yp8szKJDuKo9h8KLrsSJUqe4bqbJZD_KCbanrR1H7hmkk-kXd4acerzbzexQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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This is mostly a view of the steps leading down from the driveway. I can't say that I have previously seen such a flow of water coming off the hill and the road that lie above the property.<br />
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One good thing that came from this is that my swales, designed to capture and calm water run-off for the garden quickly filled up and there was even some water in the frog pond for the first time in over a year. Sadly my swales were not sufficient to prevent quite an amount of run-off going down to the creek below but thankfully none of this was from my garden areas. <br />
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The reason for the couple of days delay in publishing this is that I have experienced some difficulty in uploading a good enough copy of the footage and what you see here is something less than the original HD quality but slightly better than that which I was able to get on Facebook.Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-4537350905840387052013-07-15T21:44:00.002+10:002013-07-15T22:14:57.313+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 9)<h3>
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<div style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Read previous post in this series <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-8.html">here</a>.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or start at the beginning <span style="color: #66cccc;"><a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span></div>
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Waiting... Waiting...</h3>
It is a strange feeling. I feel like I am waiting for something to happen. Some new stage of life to begin. Of course, at 68 years of age there are not too many new stages of life to anticipate. Yet I feel like I am on the verge of experiencing something exciting. Something that will take up all of my attention, show me new horizons, rekindle my interest, totally absorb me in its flow.<br />
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But perhaps I am just dreaming. Perhaps my expectations are just too idealistic. Too unrealistic.<br />
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I look back at my life, and wonder. I know that I have been fortunate and privileged to have lived through all of the times that I have experienced. I think of the lives of my ancestors and realise that they had none of the opportunities that I have enjoyed. They lived their lives in relative poverty as farm labourers, gardeners and domestic servants with never a hope of achieving better circumstances. Some of them fought and died in world wars. Some of them did not live past their early childhood years. I suspect most of them received only the most modest level of education, if any at all. I, even at twelve years of age, knew more about my world than they would have learned in a lifetime. Yet I knew little or nothing about how to live. How to obtain the basic necessities of life. <br />
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I was there... </h3>
I was there when there was no such thing as plastic (at least in general use) other than <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakelite">Bakelite</a>, a word that no modern youngster would be expected to know. I was there when the latest toys were skipping ropes (with wooden handles) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top">spinning tops</a> driven by hand with a stick and a length of string.<br />
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I was there when street lighting was still mainly be gas powered. An uncle was what must have been one of the last street <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter">lamplighters</a> in the city where I lived, going around manually lighting each individual street light with a flame on a long stick at dusk and turning them off again at dawn.<br />
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I was there when the household wash was done by hand in a huge metal tub called a <a href="http://www.thebalconygardener.com/shop/vintage-products/vintage-dolly-tub/">dolly tub</a> and agitated with a <a href="http://www.objectlessons.org/houses-and-homes-victorians/washing-dolly-victorian-original/s59/a918/">wooden dolly</a> using carbolic soap and <a href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/laundry-blue.aspx">dolly blue</a>.<br />
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I was there when radio was how families received the latest news and few if any had a television set (with pictures in the glorious hues of black and white) in the home. I was there when these things were updated to use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio">transistors</a> instead of bulky <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube">globe type valves</a>. Transistors of course are now integrated parts of electronic circuit boards.<br />
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I was there when new fads or crazes such as the hula hoop and Yo-yo were at their height of popularity. Simple ideas, requiring a level of skill and dexterity. Before the age of electronics.<br />
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I was there when a group of children could enjoy play time out in the streets of a busy urban housing development without fear or supervision, playing tennis, football, skipping, hopscotch or tag games and only have to stop perhaps once an hour to allow a car to go past. There may have been perhaps only one or two houses in the entire street where the occupants owned a car. <br />
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I was there when new technologies were introduced to the family home, ostensibly to make life easier. Technologies that were outdated, discarded and replaced by an ever growing list of newer technologies. Technologies with ever shorter lifetimes, such that even my own children know little of their existence and which would be the cause of smirks and ridicule by twelve year-olds of today.<br />
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I was there when technology enabled the discovery of vast amounts of never before anticipated knowledge and information and the means to store it in ever more compact form that would have been undreamed of in the years of my youth. Storage technology that would largely foreshadow the death of newspapers and also in time, I suspect, of books. A development we may come to deeply regret. <br />
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I have also been there when the realisation dawned (at least for some of us) that the long anticipated and lauded promise of easier living that this age of prosperity, knowledge and technological achievement held out to an expectant world, was just an illusion.<br />
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The world has changed</h3>
The world has changed beyond recognition in my lifetime. Did all of these phases of new technology make life easier? I have known and experienced simple living in my early years. I have lived through the decades of rapidly expanding technological progress, marvelling and revelling in each new invention and discovery. Enjoying the relative prosperity that such things as the computer age brought with it.<br />
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Life has not, in general, been made easier, happier, freer or more satisfying by these things. On the contrary, people heavily engaged in the modern industrial/technological/military system that now powers the global, corporate controlled empire we, or most of us, live in, do so mainly in a form of debt slavery from which there is small possibility of escape. There is little hope or even willingness on the part of most people to pay down the debt that keeps them within the confines of this mega prison system or to adjust their lives to live independently of it. Very few have knowingly and purposefully engineered their escape and those that have done so have been given disparaging labels such as dropouts, hobos and hippies.<br />
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Those, the majority, that remain in the system allow their senses to be lulled and dulled by a continuous stream of entertainment, requiring low levels of mental and physical activity in the seemingly fewer and fewer hours that they can think of as their 'own' time. They live for the most part a sedentary lifestyle, even those who perform manual work these days, resulting in lowered metabolism and reduced immune system, further cementing their dependence on the system through an alarming range of new diseases and illnesses that their forbears would never have known of or experienced. Such is the price that they (we) pay. <br />
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I have changed</h3>
For the most part I have been trying in recent years to live independently of the modern system. While I was working within it I came to the conclusion that things could not possibly remain as they were/are indefinitely. The Global Financial Crisis highlighted the fragility and instability of modern economics. Climate Science pointed the way to places that I saw were not healthy situations and should at all costs be avoided for everyone's safety. Population Growth was also putting us on a path to nowhere we should even contemplate reaching. Over-consumption, pollution and environmental destruction were roads to utter collapse of our living space.<br />
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All in all we were in deep shit for as far as the eye could see and in every direction we cared to look.<br />
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I needed to ring the bell on the world 'bus and get off at the nearest stop. In the last few years I have been trying to extract myself from the system. I cleared all my debts and retired from work. Of course there is much more to living independently from the system than that and I am by no means free yet. But I am working on it.<br />
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Pinnng! (Lightbulb moment!) Perhaps that is what I am looking and waiting for. Another step towards freedom. <i> </i><br />
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<i>(This retrospective and reflection that I have been indulging myself in may not have been a waste of time. I have always said that we cannot know where we are going without knowing where we came from. History has a purpose.)</i></blockquote>
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So, what do I need to do?</h3>
This raises so many questions that I do not know where to start.<br />
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Perhaps I should list my ties to the current system and then consider them for a while.<br />
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Yes, I will do that and perhaps end this post at that point to let it all sink into my tired brain and put it on a 'Heavy' soak, wash, rinse and spin cycle to see what comes out at the end.<br />
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Here goes.<br />
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1. I am dependent on someone else for my living accommodation. Renting a home on 12 month lease. The home is up for sale. No satisfactory guarantees of continuation of lease. I do not want to own property as I consider that dangerous on a number of levels (even if I had sufficient funds to purchase). I will not go into debt to own a home. I could live in a tent (I have three of them of different sizes), a cave or abandoned shack somewhere out in the bush. I could also just go on the road as a hobo or swaggie (swagman for non-Aussies). Not an exciting prospect at my age but something that everyone may need to consider at some stage and in some circumstances that I can foresee. I also have my car, a small LWB Mercedes A160 which I could live in at a pinch or go on the road as a mobile swaggie. But that would entail the suspension of some of my environmental principles and in any case is no long term solution unless I can find a permanent site to occupy. This situation also has implications for my ability to grow sufficient food to adequately feed myself. I have, from time to time, considered life among folk in an intentional community but have largely dismissed that prospect now as being too dangerous and claustrophobic. Such people are generally over-religious, outright nuts or peculiarly weird in some other way. I am myself not particularly 'normal' anyway. <br />
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2. I am partially dependent on the government (Aged Pension from both the Australian and UK govts. plus another small military pension). These dependencies, I realise, cannot be guaranteed because as soon as government ceases to generate income through taxes (highly likely at some stage in the future) all government payments will also cease. Therefore, any prospective future living conditions (including the need to eat) need to be conducted without the necessity to pay for them ie. without requiring any form of income to do so. This reduces my purchasing power to things such as personal labour, services and things that I may possess, be able to make or grow, or can by some other means beg, borrow or steal. Again not an exciting prospect at my age but something that everyone may need to consider at some stage and in some circumstances that I can foresee. Living without money is something that I would like to become proficient at. Oh dear, I hope this isn't a case of be careful what you ask for, you might get it. I said 'become proficient at' not 'actually have to do'.<br />
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3. I own a car. A petrol driven car. A small but very flexibly designed car that can be used for many purposes including, as I intimated earlier, living in. I try to use it as little as possible, restricting my annual driving to around 7,000 klms (not easy when you live remotely). My preference would be to live in such a way that I would not require a motor vehicle but perhaps bicycle/walk everywhere I needed to go. I am certain that there will come a time when everyone will need to make such decisions for themselves. Petroleum products will either be not available, restricted to government, military or emergency use, or priced above the reach of anyone who is not extremely rich (if such people still exist) for general domestic or recreational use.<br />
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4. I have a need to buy food (because I cannot in my current circumstances grow anywhere near the amount of food that I need to stay healthy and relatively fit). I am a vegetarian so the types of food that I need to purchase are not as extensive as the needs of a meat eater. I generally shop for food about once every three weeks, making the bulk of my purchases from a farmers gate shop selling only local (ie. grown not very far away and not imported) produce and a rare eco-store. I consider this in some part sustainable except for the fact that I need to drive my car on an up to 150 klms round trip to shop this way and some of my purchases are not locally produced. I also realise that it may not be possible in the future to make such shopping trips. I also spend a very small amount ($20-30) in a major supermarket on these shopping trips, for certain items that I can't get at my preferred stores. I almost never eat out and absolutely never consume fast take-away food. I would dearly like to grow or obtain all of my food requirements locally without degrading my principles in any way. <br />
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5. I use mostly grid-based electricity. No gas, piped or cylinder. I also have an indepentent (self-built and supposedly portable) battery stored solar electric power system providing 2-3 kWh consumption daily. I have chosen to pay the electricity grid-supply rate for 100% green power so I have no regrets on that score but I would like to be in a situation where my power consumption was entirely grid-free whether by reduced consumption or increased solar (or other renewable) capacity. <br />
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6. I need to be able to clothe myself. This is not a priority for me as I have fairly carefully planned to meet the need and my needs are fairly simple. I have long discarded the need to adopt fashion as a personal signature. From the days when I possessed a dress suit for every day of the week, for the last ten years I have not owned even a single such suit. I do possess one necktie for old times sake and for when the need arises for something to keep my pants up. My daily uniform mostly consists T-shirts, polos and jumpers, with a range of colours of military style cargo pants with tie bottoms over sturdy hiking boots. Complementing these with sets of thermal underwear, normal underwear, socks, beanies and other headwear, coats ranging from military style parkas to hiking gear to sports tops, I have enough clothing to last for several if not many years. I wear leather belts and boots, something that I do not consider to be against my vegetarian principles. Animal hide makes some very fine clothing necessities (though I am not sure that I would like to or be capable of making them or procuring the material myself) but I see no reason to also eat our animal friends. Especially as to do so is not conducive to good health and may well be detrimental to life expectation. I include this here because there will come a time (I expect) when I will need to replace my current clothing stock. Since I have no means or capability at this time to make my own clothing, replacing it may have to come down to bartering, rummage through abandoned possessions or, in extreme necessity, theft.<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;">~ : ~</b> </div>
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I am sure that there are other issues that I would like resolved and which ought to be included in this list but I will leave it there for now. I may add other points as they spring to my attention. </div>
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This is the consideration of my future that I have been talking about in this series.</div>
<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-54805013804693848392013-06-23T22:23:00.000+10:002013-06-23T22:23:49.487+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 8)<h3>
<div style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Read previous post in this series <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-7.html">here</a>.</span></div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or start at the beginning <span style="color: #66cccc;"><a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span></div>
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<h3>
<i>Note:</i></h3>
<i>Two things. </i><br />
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<li><i>I started writing this post on 14 June so the 'News' I speak of in the first section is probably no longer 'newsy' since most news today simply fades into the background little over a day after it occurs. C'est la vie!</i></li>
<li><i>The main reason for delay in completing this post is because I have been agonising over just what to include here. I realised that the sort of detail that I intended to include actually best resides in another blog that I started but have left untouched for some time because I found that I couldn't spend the amount of time on it that it demanded and deserved. That blog is <a href="http://preparationsblog.wordpress.com/">here</a> if you wish to take a look. I have now decided to write just a little about water, food and shelter in this post and provide links to the relevant sections in my Preparations blog where I will find time to at least do these subjects some justice as soon as I can. It seems silly to record this stuff in two separate places. Another reason that I have delayed is because I feel a little daunted by the task. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and faint heart never won fair lady, or something like that. This series of posts may be just the impetus I need to get me going again on that project and will assist me to get through this one a little quicker.</i></li>
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<i>Continue... </i><br />
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<h3>
Not News To Me</h3>
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Here is another little aside that I thought worthwhile to slip in at this point. I just saw this on the news (14 June), well actually behind the news. Important as it is, it is not the sort of thing that tends to feature on mainstream news. They tend to concentrate on more mundane things like some low-life admitting to the murder of her 6 year old daughter or foreign troops being sent to aid the Syrian regime to continue murdering its civilian population.</div>
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What I saw and read was also not even news to me or I suspect to many other people who follow important world events like climate change. It was a new report issued by Australia's Climate Commissioners entitled <a href="http://climatecommission.gov.au/report/the-critical-decade-2013/">The Critical Decade</a>, the main findings of which are that 80% of known fossil fuels must be left in the ground if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change. </div>
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Welcome as it is to hear such things from officialdom, that news has been known for quite some time already in enlightened circles.</div>
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Is that important news or not? Damn right it is.</div>
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Is it going to happen (the abandoning of known fossil energy reserves, I mean)? Not a chance. None at all.</div>
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What does that mean then? Well, whether we do or whether we don't, we're stuffed. Either way it will lead to the sort of collapse scenario that I am talking about in these posts. </div>
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On the one hand, very bad climate precipitated destabilisation of world communities leading to untold suffering and billions of deaths. Bad not only for humans but also for the environment. </div>
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On the other hand, an almost unthinkable cut to all aspects of economic growth and return to pretty much pre-industrial living conditions (don't let those dreams of a green utopia cloud your thinking on this for one second), pre-empting a relatively fast and unmanageable collapse of civilisation world-wide, leading to untold suffering and billions of deaths, but only to humans and numbers of domesticated animals. The sort of thing that is going to occur anyway for different reasons fairly soon.</div>
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I thought it quite appropriate to mention that here. Now, back to the business at hand.<br />
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<h3>
The 'On-Tap' Expectation</h3>
People, at least those accustomed to developed world life-styles, have largely grown used to their everyday needs being 'on-tap', in the sense that they are always available at any time whenever needed. <br />
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You get water by turning on a tap or buying a plastic bottle full of the stuff. <br />
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You get food by opening the refrigerator or visiting a conveniently located retail food outlet.<br />
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You take shelter in your own/rented dwelling place or, while away from home, in a hotel/motel.<br />
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Even now in many parts of the world and also increasingly, as society disintegrates in developed nations, none of these things can be taken for granted. We don't have to go back very many generations to find a time when, other than for the few wealthy or privileged persons, none of these things were available to the vast majority of ordinary folk unless the individual or family laboured to produce, build, or in some other way obtain them personally for themselves. Much of their time and lives were spent in the process of doing that and pretty much only that. Though time spent in procuring and maintaining sources of one's own basic necessities would have been considered to be not arduous but enjoyable, fulfilling and community building. <br />
<br />
Since the time of industrialisation onwards until today, people have given away their time doing things that are rather pointless and in no way beneficial to themselves or anyone else, in exchange for tokens that allow them to receive their basic necessities, water, food, shelter, and enough other stuff to keep them 'happy' and the economy growing, without any personal connection to the process of procuring any of them. That total disconnection from process is a very dangerous thing.<br />
<br />
<h3>
I Did It My Way</h3>
It was a recognition of that disconnection I spoke about earlier, in my own life, and a deep fear of just what hazards I may find myself up against in the future, that lead me to take steps to alter the parameters a little or as much as I reasonably could in my favour over time.<br />
<br />
This is a continuing process and one that no matter how much thought, time, resources and effort I put into it, comes with no guarantee or assurance that all will be well in all circumstances wherever I find myself at any point in the future. There is however, having taken at least some steps to prepare as best I can, a certain degree of comfort that I will be better placed to obtain a good outcome than if I had stuck my head in the sand and done nothing.<br />
<br />
So, what have I done, that I could recommend to others? I am going to list some of them now but you should, as I have already stressed a number of times, think out your own solutions, build on these suggestions or research (definitely research) to find your own methods as best suit your personal requirements, abilities, energy levels and resources.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Water</h3>
<div>
Clean, potent, uncontaminated drinking water is the most basic human need, assuming that a ready supply of clean breathable air is a given. A person can live without eating for many days but only for a few days without ingesting water. Dehydration is an unforgiving killer and will quickly deplete your ability to function autonomously. In a time of upheaval when medical care of any sort may be in just as short supply as law and order, any and all illness or preventable physical weakness, from any source, is something to be strenuously avoided at all costs.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
You should know that a power-down of any sort will quickly result in loss of your supply of tap water. Shop shelves will also very quickly empty of bottled water, assuming that you have either of those luxuries in the first place. This is one item that you would be well advised to keep an emergency supply of at all times.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So where would you get your water from if these normal supply sources were suddenly not available to you?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are a number of things to consider. Are you in an established location where you may be able to secure a fixed water supply or are you en-route to somewhere such that your daily water supply has to be searched for in a different place every day? In either case, are you sure of the potency of any water that you have access to ie. is it fit to drink?<br />
<br />
There is much more to say about this but I have, and will continue to do so, written on the subject elsewhere and we can utilise the power of the internet, while it is still available, to pull in and refer to that information. Further details about water as a resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable procurement of supplies of this valuable commodity, can be found <a href="http://preparationsblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/water/">here</a> at my Preparations blog site.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
</div>
<h3>
Food</h3>
<div>
Food is, whether you agree or not and irrespective of the fact that I have listed it here, not the next most important basic resource for humans. We can live for many days without food, although not for too many without becoming weak, impaired and eventually incapacitated. No, shelter holds that 'next' position. No matter, we will talk about food anyway because it is pretty much always on most people's mind.<br />
<br />
Both food and water are heavy and cumbersome to tote around much, especially if you are on foot. Even in most wheeled transport it would be difficult to transport a sufficient quantity of either to last for more than a few days for a family. There is little point therefore in storing up huge quantities, especially of food, unless you are in a secure place where you intend on staying, to defend it come hell or high water.<br />
<br />
This is not to say that you shouldn't keep an emergency store of both food and water. In fact, many government bodies at all levels are saying that it makes good sense to do so. Relying on normal sources of nutrition, supermarkets etc., you are only 9 meals (3 days) away from starvation at all times. Even the best of times.<br />
<br />
Again, I have, and will continue to do so, written on the subject elsewhere on this for your reference. Further details about food as a resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable procurement of supplies of this valuable commodity, can be found <a href="http://preparationsblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/food/">here</a> at my Preparations blog site.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
Shelter</h3>
<div>
Have you ever slept rough? Outside, without shelter? I don't mean like in those CEO sleep-outs in support of the homeless.<br />
<br />
I have, once. Well actually, twice but the first time was when I was fourteen and arrived home late one night. I didn't want to wake my parents so I slept on the porch which was open to the night but at least I had a roof above me. My recollection is that it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience and as soon as I heard someone stirring next morning I was banging on the door to be let in.<br />
<br />
My other experience was when as part of my Air Force training, living for a week under canvas in Sherwood Forest (Robin Hood's hang out) along with other trainees, we were taken deep into the forest on a 'night exercise'. When we got there we were told to individually find somewhere to sleep for the night by building a lean-to next to a friendly tree somewhere in the vicinity and not so far away that they would need to come looking for us next day. We had only the clothes we were standing up in. No tools. No food/water. No packs. No torch/flashlights. I was personally very pleased that it was only for one night I can tell you.<br />
<br />
Imagine, if you will, being caught unprepared for a situation where to escape with your life, you had to flee everything that you were familiar with and try to make your way to a safe place. Imagine if that happened tomorrow or in the middle of the night tonight. How prepared would you be.<br />
<br />
I personally have two plans for such events. One involves being able to escape in a vehicle which can be quickly loaded with the temporary necessities for survival. But I also recognise that even if an escape by such means is possible, I might have to complete that trip on foot from some point in the journey. Part of my plans therefore are to make my way on foot with a much reduced load, always assuming that I am physically capable of achieving such an effort at the time. Both plans include some form of shelter but, even if they didn't, I know how to build myself shelter in the woods if no better safe options are available.<br />
<br />
Any time that you go away from your normal place of residence, even in low risk times like a local shopping trip, common sense (at least to me) says that you should go 'prepared' as well as you are able, to at least be equipped to make it back home or to some other place of safety if something unexpected should occur. Again, many government sources are warning on these things and many advocate taking a Go-Bag with you that contains all your needs for at least 24 hours any time you are away from home such as a work day trip to a city complex. Makes perfect sense to me and part of that is having the assurance that whatever happens you can keep yourself sheltered for a while. Your life may depend on it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Further details about shelter as a valuable resource, necessary skills and equipment that may enable adequate shelter to be found or constructed, can be found <a href="http://preparationsblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/shelter/">here</a>.</div>
<br />
<br />Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-71787062513300406072013-06-14T15:18:00.001+10:002013-06-23T22:23:00.178+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 7)<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-4314159292779245324" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 578px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Read previous post in this series <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-6.html">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or start at the beginning <span style="color: #66cccc;"><a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span><br />
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<h3>
<span style="font-size: normal;">A Restatement of Purpose</span></h3>
<span style="font-size: normal;">This is perhaps an opportune moment for me to restate what I am doing here in this series of posts. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: normal;">The title says I need to think about my future. To what purpose? Well, we all live in a world of vapid uncertainty. Nothing is clear, sharply focussed, or undeniably true. This is partly I think due to the complexity of society that we have woven about us. We don't know where we are going. No one seems to be in charge or at least holds a steady hand on the wheel. Lists of problems are growing and pressing all around us. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: normal;">This is no way to live. This is no way to plan and Know, with a capital 'K', that your plans will, with any degree of assurance, take you further towards achieving your goals. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: normal;">What we need, more importantly, what I need, is to establish a level of certainty in a world that is anything but certain. Is that achievable? Can I do that? Or is this just part of the human condition? Is this part and parcel of what has become known as the <a href="http://theconversation.com/explainer-heisenbergs-uncertainty-principle-7512">Uncertainty Principle</a>, where, </span>simply stated, 'You can never be sure of everything'?<br />
<br />
In the complexity of the Quantum world we can never know precisely where something is, because the very act of measuring its speed and position has a direct effect on one or both of those things?<br />
<br />
I have used the word 'complexity' twice now in this section and it may be that this is somehow the answer, or rather somehow the problem. Does it not stand to reason that reducing complexity may somehow reduce uncertainty, that a move towards simplicity may somehow provide more clarity?<br />
<br />
I cannot state with any assurance that this is true, but it would not hurt to in some measure explore the possibility. So, what do I recommend? What solutions do I have to offer?<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: normal;">A Compendium of Solutions?</span></h3>
<div>
<span style="font-size: normal;">Ah, if only I could conjure one of those up. No, this is not going to actually be a 'kit' to solve all problems for all situations in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia">dystopian</a> world. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: normal;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-size: normal;">In such a world, your survival will largely depend on your ability to think independently, yet, wherever possible, co-operatively with others. It is my intention therefore to encourage you to start or to expand your thinking along those lines. I will of course be providing what I consider to be some helpful guidance on matters that may or may not have had occasion to cross your mind previously, and this will </span>hopefully help to focus and direct your thoughts.<br />
<br />
Let's start by stating a basic premise.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
<span style="font-size: normal;">A Basic Premise</span></h3>
I cannot be sure that what I have already said or am about to say, is how events will actually transpire and it would be foolish of you to take my word for it without having given some thought to the possibilities yourself, but I believe what we are going to see occur on this planet at some stage not too far in the future will be something along these lines.<br />
<br />
At some future point in time there will be a period of intense disruption on this planet. It may be that the initial impact of the disruption will primarily impinge on only one or maybe a few specific regions of the globe, depending on the nature of the troubles but it will quickly, if not initially, envelop the entire globe in its effect and it will result in the displacement of millions, perhaps billions of people from their normal place of domicile. The cause of this disruption may or may not be due to prior actions of human society but the odds are in favour of us having at least something to do with it. We can only hope that the worst effects are relatively short lived and that it will be followed by a period of renewed life for at least a remnant of our species and a majority of our coexistent creatures. That is not guaranteed in all cases that I can imagine but what follows is premised on the non-extinguishing of all life globally. Something that has almost occurred several times in Earth's history.<br />
<br />
There is a good chance that you and/or your family or community may be among the multitude of persons displaced by the event. If you normally live close to national borders, including and perhaps especially coastal areas, areas bordering on extreme climate conditions, or in proximity to or part of a large metropolis, that risk of needing to migrate elsewhere is significantly increased.<br />
<br />
If you cannot foresee this ever happening to you or you believe that even if it does occur, you will somehow not be affected by it, then I suggest that you will be wasting your time in reading further. Otherwise, please continue.<br />
<br />
Generally speaking, people will only uproot themselves when driven by absolute necessity. The majority in that situation will be ill-prepared for what faces them. If such things are occurring worldwide then little or no assistance can be expected to be forthcoming and many people will perish in the process of extracting themselves from the most affected areas and endeavouring to hold life and limb together through the worst of the conditions. Those who make it through to the end will face a very different world than anything that they have ever imagined or experienced. Normal civilisation will have ended. The normal rules of life will no longer apply.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Basic Needs</h3>
A person's basic needs are not dependent on the circumstances in which that person finds themselves. Basic needs, those necessary to sustain life, remain static.<br />
<br />
Again, depending on the cause of the collapse, the fabric of prior civilisation may be:<br />
<ul>
<li>Visibly intact, though unworkable because no-one remains who knows how to restart or organise it or where/how to get the energy to power all or even part of it. Some of it may be usable or salvageable for other less energy intensive purposes. </li>
<li>Visible but in a state of destruction such that little of it could ever be usable or salvageable.</li>
<li>No longer available due to being buried, submerged or by other means completely scattered across the face of the Earth.</li>
</ul>
<br />
The first point to note is that in none of the above situations can you depend on, nor should you even expect, there being any form of government or law enforcement in effect, now, or quite possibly even in the long term. You are largely now dependant on your own resources, devices, aptitude and attitude. Trust among survivors, few if any of whom you will likely know from previous life experiences, will have to be proven and earned.<br />
<br />
In the first of the above listed possibilities, it is likely that you, as a survivor, will be able to scavenge food and water supplies from the remains of society; vacant homes, retail food outlets, bulk storage facilities etc., to cover your short or even perhaps your medium term needs, providing that you get there first and have the means to hold on to whatever you find.<br />
<br />
You may well find that it is fairly easy to find shelter for a while or even for extended periods as some or much of the structural property remains intact. There will be a lot of vacant property. However, making shelter into a safe haven and finding sufficient food and water to sustain you for more than a short period is very unlikely and does not come without additional risk as those survivors who may not have been so fortunate as yourself come looking to take whatever they think you may have to meet their own needs. <br />
<br />
You will then have the identical problems to overcome in the medium and long term as mentioned below in the remaining scenarios. And the same terminal risk of failure.<br />
<br />
In the second and third of these circumstances, because of the increased devastation, there will be no opportunity to go down to the nearest take-away or supermarket for food and water, also little to no prospect of taking shelter, even temporarily, in a normal home, your own or anyone else's. <br />
<br />
In all of these cases, as a survivor, you will make your own arrangements covering the short, medium and long term, to find continuing supplies of food and water from natural sources and to make or construct adequate shelter for yourself. Or you will die. <br />
<br />
Through pre-planning, you may have the means and comfort to buy yourself a little time to organise yourself properly, by subsisting on the small amount although temporary nature of such supplies as you were able to carry with you through the first stage of the disruption. Your adequate pre-planning for such events may be just the difference between making it through to the next stage or going under right here.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b style="font-size: x-large;">~ : ~</b></div>
<br />
I have mentioned three basic needs so far. Water, food and shelter. There are others of course but these three are absolute necessities of life. Let's look at these things in finer detail in the next post.<br />
<br /></div>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-43141592927792453242013-06-06T20:11:00.001+10:002013-06-23T22:23:14.390+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 6)Read previous post in this series <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-5.html">here</a>.<br />
Or start at the beginning <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a><span style="font-size: small;">.</span><br />
<br />
<h3>
Start Point</h3>
We have to start somewhere and if you are following this with a genuine wish to begin some sort of preparations for dealing with unknown future events then this, I recall, with numerous new and frightening thought streams buzzing around in your head, is very difficult to establish. <br />
<br />
Where did I begin?<br />
<br />
When you know little or nothing about a subject you can either run around like a headless chook for a while, likely getting disillusioned or discouraged, or you can start by picking other peoples brains through reading what their approach was when they began the process. This can be a double edged sword and there are likely to be fewer tears and regrets if a little caution is exercised in using cool and clear-headed discrimination about the quality of advice that you may come across or indeed be given by otherwise well-meaning folk.<br />
<br />
I tend to not get involved in online forums (though they have occasionally proved useful when thrown up by an internet search for something specific), being suspicious of the control freaks and know-alls that abound in such places. I would also not recommend relying on local libraries or random book purchases as the basis of your research endeavours, although you may well come across good book recommendations along the way. Research before spend, is my advice. You will have more than enough necessities to spend your hard-earned on after you have gained some reasonable picture of what is most needed.<br />
<br />
Talking to friends about this is also not wise until after you have grounded and established yourself as an active and knowledgeable preparer, unless you are fortunate enough to be close to someone who is already somewhere along the path of readiness preparation and who doesn't mind being pestered by a (was going to say 'Noob' but that is disparaging forum talk, best avoided) newcomer to the process. You are, after all, endeavouring to become a self-reliant individual who knows their own mind, has made a decision to stand on their own feet together with like minded folk or alone if necessary, and you are exercising your own powers of judgment about what matters and what does not, what you take on board and what you consign to the trash bin. Majority views and attitudes are not what you are seeking. What you are doing now, will never become mainstream.<br />
<br />
By the way, having done much research and reading the hard way in times past, I think that we are currently sublimely fortunate to have the excellent facility and research power of the internet at our disposal and I can think of no better purpose to put that resource to use than this. Keep in mind, it may not be there for ever.<br />
<br />
My approach when I come across a new online link is to get some feel of the tone of the individual writing it and their purpose in doing so. Unless the feeling is right or I am looking for specific information which I believe may be referenced there, I move on elsewhere.<br />
<br />
In my own country of Australia there is not a great deal of good advice available as this subject is still in its infancy, not yet being taken too seriously by the majority of folk, if indeed it ever will. <br />
<br />
I am not going to insert specific search words or links as general reference points here but I may well do so later or in a separate post for that specific purpose. Those things take time to set up and while I am in the writing mood, I will get as much general information laid out here as I can. It does not, in any case, take much imagination to start searching for something relevant but again I warn that you will need to exercise a good personal discrimination filter if you are not to be sidetracked or led astray from your current purpose.<br />
<br />
You will find (at least I did) that you are inevitably led towards information from US sources, where this type of thing is big-ish business, especially among those who like playing with guns out in the woods. But this is the land of cowboys after all. Americans seem to have a deep seated suspicion of the motives of their government (perhaps not unwarranted), conspiracy theories, erosion of their freedoms (again, perhaps not unwarranted) and a god given desire and right to shoot just about anything that moves if they perceive it as a threat. That country holds a great many wackos, but then so does Australia, of a slightly different variety. Thank goodness that gun ownership is not a right of citizenship here.<br />
<br />
Contrasting that picture, American 'prepper' sites do contain a wealth of valid ideas for the scenarios I am talking about and that country is also the source of some very good outdoors equipment not available elsewhere. <br />
<br />
Another important warning that I should give is to not jump into spending huge sums of money based on other people's recommendations until you have formulated some sort of plan of your own and have prioritised your anticipated spending.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Thinking...</h3>
Ok, so you have done some research of your own. You have seen others' varied views of the sort of situations that we may expect to experience at some stage. Be aware though that not all possibilities are widely canvassed in the available literature and folklore surrounding collapse, and those that do receive the most airplay are not necessarily the most likely to occur. For example, you can almost, almost but not quite, forget about the possibility of EMP attacks. This is a purely American preoccupation.<br />
<br />
The next step is to start thinking, by asking yourself questions about various likely collapse trigger events.<br />
<br />
Think about what you would wish to do to preserve a reasonable way of life in the new set of circumstances that might be expected during and after such events.<br />
<br />
Think about what equipment and supplies you should gather to realistically allow you to achieve those aims and also about what new skills or training would be necessary to enhance your current knowledge.<br />
<br />
A short section, but that is a lot of thinking to do. Take your time.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Questions, Questions, Questions</h3>
Here are some possible pointers to get your thinking started. <br />
<br />
<i>You need to answer these questions for every eventuality that you consider may be appropriate to your particular circumstances. For example, if you had cause to believe that above rooftop flooding would ensue, you would not elect to remain in your dwelling but if you believed the property to be defensible against marauding attackers, you might stay there, at least for a while (though I would advise against it). </i><br />
<i><br />
</i> <i>DO NOT, whatever you do, print out these questions and show the answers to others or leave them laying around where they may be seen or found. The same goes for any other documentation or plans that you may put together as part of your preparations.</i><br />
<br />
Is there some sort of danger, whether anticipated, present or growing, in your country, region, city or general area?<br />
<br />
How imminent is that danger?<br />
<br />
What level of threat would you assign or have been advised that this danger presents to your household?<br />
<br />
Is your concern for others close to you or just for yourself?<br />
<br />
Do you have a plan covering such an event? (<i>Now is not the time to make one</i>)<br />
<br />
Do you need to evacuate:<br />
<ul>
<li>immediately?</li>
<li>at some stage?</li>
<li>when advised?</li>
<li>not at all?</li>
</ul>
<br />
If you need to evacuate at all, are you ready to do so?<br />
<br />
Does your evacuation plan include a vehicle?<br />
<br />
Is the vehicle packed for evacuation? Fuel tanks full?<br />
<br />
Will you be heading for some specific place, perhaps to meet up with others?<br />
<br />
Is the destination within range of your fuel load?<br />
<br />
Do you have an escape route from the immediate area planned? Plan B? Plan C?<br />
<br />
If you are staying where you are for now, are you able to fortify the building entrance points?<br />
<br />
Do you have a safe room? Is it a potential death trap?<br />
<br />
Do you have a hidden underground shelter? Is there an emergency exit?<br />
<br />
How many days/weeks supply of food/water do you have stored? Is that enough?<br />
<br />
What are the intentions of neighbours around you as to staying/leaving? Does this affect your decision? <i>(only ask around about this if there is general awareness of the problem and you are in regular neighbourhood communication.)</i><br />
<i><br />
</i> Do you have a pre-planned point of escalation of the danger being faced at which you will retire from open neighbourhood participation to your own personal strong point for safety?<br />
<i><br />
</i> Do you have personal packs, 'go-bags' set up for everyone in your party, in case your evacuation vehicle is unavailable or you need to make an emergency exit on foot from your stronghold?<br />
<br />
Do you have an emergency on foot escape route? Plan B? Plan C?<br />
<i><br />
</i> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>~ : ~</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Ok, that should give some idea of the sort of thinking that people ought to be making well before an emergency starts. when the wheels of disaster start to roll, is not the time to be formulating plans to deal with the situation. There will likely be no time available to plan, alter, gather resources or otherwise act cogently and cohesively unless you already know what your intended actions will be beforehand.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
You will no doubt be able to add to and flesh out this list of queries to your own preferences and satisfaction. I hope you do. It is only a guide.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
So, we have got you either safely ensconced within your castle, hopefully providing and receiving support from your neighbours for as long as it is practicable, motoring to your pre-agreed evacuation point or, in emergency, escaping on foot to some place with only what you can carry on your back(s). </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
There is one further situation that may be vitally important to consider for a great many people in this modern age. What arrangements have been made if one or more of your immediate party/family is away from home, perhaps for work reasons, at the commencement of such a scenario as we are contemplating? How will you make the trip home if the whole country/region is under disruption? Do you have the on-hand resources for the possibility of such a journey under your own steam? Do the rest of your party/family know what to do, what the plan is in such an event? Do they possess the capacity to work the plan in your absence? What if you are all away from your normal base of operations at the time eg. holiday travel?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I will leave you to ponder those things. Until next time. </div>
<i><br />
</i>Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-36306769202347075502013-06-05T22:00:00.000+10:002013-06-05T22:02:22.787+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 5)<h3>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 1 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 2 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-2.html">here</a>.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 3 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-3.html">here</a>.<br />
Read Part 4 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-4.html">here</a>.<br />
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<h3>
Authenticity and Disclaimer</h3>
<div>
I find it intriguing that I am writing this series of posts as if I knew what I am talking about with some sort of authority. Looking back I see that I generally do that with all of my writings. I of course am not an expert on the subject but, generally speaking, anything that self-proclaimed experts have to say should be taken with a grain of salt. I can legitimately claim that I am able to bring a lifetime of experience to my writings on most subjects and I have spent a considerable amount of time and research through reading, actively pursuing and thinking about the issues raised here. This must give my writings a certain amount of validity. They certainly make sense to me but you must be the final judge and arbiter of what you take from them.</div>
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I suppose I should issue some sort of disclaimer and warning that I am not responsible for any possible outcome arising from any person following advice given in these pages and that all persons who do so, act entirely at their own risk. </div>
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<h3>
Expanding the Envelope</h3>
Just a brief word on collapse. If you have been giving serious thought to the future of our society/civilisation whether from what you have read here or elsewhere, you may be asking yourself the question as to why I have only really attributed the primary reasons for collapse so far to mainly the frailty of financial systems. There is a reason for this and it is mainly to do with keeping it simple as the excesses and activities of the banking and finance industries is something that I think most people can recognise as being a problem. There are of course many other potential sources of collapse. Notice that I have not so far mentioned much about catastrophic climate change, food shortage, unavailability of drinking water, shortages of other resources, loss or restriction of basic freedoms and human rights by world government or mega corporations, global pandemics or nuclear war. Note also that this list of potential triggers is by no means exhaustive.<br />
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I do not wish to further expand on these things in these pages other than to raise them as and when they affect my own preparations and decisions, so as not to complicate the message too much. <br />
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<h3>
Making it Personal Again</h3>
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Perhaps the best way that I can make this real is to return to my original theme of working out pathways to solve my own problems with regard to future events and the steps I have taken or am thinking of taking.<br />
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I have already made what I consider to be the best first step in gaining some confidence that I have the greatest possible opportunity to enjoy a continued existence should bad things happen in the world. I have relocated my home to the country, almost an hour drive from the metropolis and at least 30 kilometres from any small town. <br />
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That most people would not see my actions as a priority for themselves due to being tied to a property through ownership, I can readily see. I would also say that in these cases it is even more imperative for property owners to be aware of trends that would indicate a collapsing society and to be well prepared to exit stage left at a moment's notice when personal judgement indicates the time is right. Delay may well be fatal, life is far more valuable than property and pebbles on a beach get bowled over and generally knocked about by tidal waves.<br />
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There is no doubt in my mind that desperate people will be capable of trekking further out from urbania than I currently dwell in search of food but hopefully not in the hoards that will be pouring out from outer metropolitan suburbs towards surrounding areas in order to escape the carnage of inner cities in the worst of cases. Even if the military and police forces are able to retain some form of cohesion within their organisations for a time, and that is unlikely because many of these people also have families of their own, they will be so vastly outnumbered by the hoards of starving populace that any hope of maintaining civil order will quickly be dashed.<br />
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I am not saying that such chaos is likely to occur overnight, but it could. At that point it is too late to start preparing. Many home owners or apartment dwellers will initially be reluctant to abandon their homes, preferring to stay to protect their investment or to wait for a government response and a restoring of order which may never come. There may well be cases of disorder from time to time where some sort of normality will be restored by authorities and this may set a dangerous precedent in people's mind that law and order will always prevail. <br />
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However, I believe there will come a time of total systemic failure where there will be no possibility of retaining public order or recovering it for periods of months or years afterwards, if ever, and this dramatic situation may arise very suddenly, perhaps even over a single night. The wait and see approach will in such cases most likely prove fatal for many as their homes and gardens are overrun by floods of evacuees desperately searching for food or evading terror and destruction. Even so, there will likely be a delay of a few days, certainly not weeks, where the signs become obvious that remaining in your property, as if your home is your castle, will not be a healthy choice.<br />
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Folk who make the right decision to abandon their homes in time will simply add to the migratory spread of pilgrims emanating from the city boundaries to survive. Few of these people will have made any realistic effort to prepare for such eventualities.<br />
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Where the cause of a mass migration from a city is due to total destruction (eg. permanent inundation by flooding, nuclear detonation or other WMD), the area will already have been cleared of human activity by the event. In other cases, I can see gang warfare, rape, torture, cannibalism and a very short life expectation among those who elect to remain. This is where those baser animal instincts will come to the fore. Those who come out on top of this orgy of terror, after all other resources have been consumed, will then go looking elsewhere for their pleasures and needs to be met.<br />
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<h3>
When Did I start Thinking Like This?</h3>
<div>
Way back in 1972 when I was introduced to the newly published book 'Limits To Growth', a report of the Club of Rome, as part of a Technology Foundation Course I was taking towards an Open University batchelors degree which I never completed (the degree, not the course or the book), I was made aware that shortly after the turn of the century ie. round about now, as I write this, unless the world's people did something about curtailing usage of Earth resources, economic growth and population growth, civilisation would come up against finite limits to what they were doing and their way of life would enter a serious decline in all three of these parameters. In other words, the world (at least, the world of human society) would enter a period of irreversible collapse.</div>
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Over time, with the pressing foci of bringing up families, career changes, divorce, emigration and all of the other vagaries of life, I let the memories of what I had learned lapse to the back of my mind. Around 25 years later, towards the end of the century, these things came back into focus as a result of further reading and study. I realised that during that intervening period, absolutely nothing had been done anywhere around the world to address the issues raised by the authors of this report. That realisation re-ignited my interest in the subject and set me off on a new learning spree that continues to this day.</div>
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I have to admit that Limits to Growth was such dreadfully boring stuff that only a research scientist could have taken pleasure in and fully understood and to this day I have not completed reading the 30 year sequel published in 2004, and probably never will. </div>
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It is the not the content but the conclusions that are essential to understand. </div>
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Even now, more than forty years on from the initial findings, these premises (they were not meant to be predictions) have not proven false or inaccurate in any way. Our way of life is at the crossroads, or cliff edge if you like, because we have stupidly and blindly followed disastrous economic, population and resource usage pathways as if we were living on an infinitely large planet where we could do whatever we liked without any sort of consequences. </div>
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I am aware that much of this sounds very dramatic, perhaps even forced. I wish that I could make it sound even more dramatic, and necessary, and urgent, because I see people who have no idea that this sort of event is about to rock their world and are totally unprepared or in any way concerned about the prospect. But if 'Limits to Growth' and the myriad of other warning voices that have been raised over this period have not done the trick, then what hope do I have of altering the outcome. My only wish is that someone somewhere will read this, in time, and experience a light bulb moment. </div>
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<h3>
Read, Research, Plan</h3>
Even before I retired in 2010, I had become acutely aware of the imminent possibility of collapse (the 2008/9 GFC had something to do with that) and started to make preparations for survival while living alone and renting a small unit in an outer suburb. I realised that if I had to move anywhere under circumstances that I was anticipating to arise as I have attempted to describe, it was obvious that until I could find some safe long-term shelter and provide for an adequate regular food supply and other basic necessities of life, I was likely going to have to live rough for at least some time and perhaps for lengthy periods. I spent a lot of time considering this, researching around it and planning for it. <br />
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The prospect was quite worrying. I had spent most of my waking hours over the last 30 some years in air-conditioned offices, cars or home buildings. I was not, by any definition, an outdoors person. However, I knew that I was capable of hard work as while living in my last owned home in the early '90s I had constructed gardens and retaining walls built from Nullarbor sourced genuine old Jarrah railway sleepers, manhandled by myself alone over a virgin suburban block with a 7.5m fall from back to front of the land. I had become quite fit while doing that but over intervening years my life became more sedentary although I knew I could rebuild myself again if necessary.<br />
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I did return to a level of fitness while living alone. From the first day I made the decision to be vegetarian and have not included meat of any kind in my diet for over ten years now. I studied Reiki (Level III practitioner), medical Qi Gong and also Touch for Health Kinesiology. All of which I practised for personal health. <br />
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In all of that time I had not needed to consult medical aid of any sort. Even after turning 60 I had full expectation of living in a healthy body for another forty years at least. It was a great disappointment to me therefore when I fell ill for a while as I described in an earlier post, but I haven't let that stop me from pursuing a healthy lifestyle or preparing for whatever type of collapse scenario might lay ahead.<br />
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I am now (next post) going provide details, as specifically as I can, or feel that it is safe for me to divulge, about what I have learned, the type of preparations I have made and the benefits and reasons for doing so.<br />
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My intention is then to record my thinking on the paths forward that I might reasonably take in my own best interests for a safe future.<br />
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So, I expect to still be making quite a few posts in this series. They may not come quite as thick and fast as up to this point.<br />
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</h3>
Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-30607560485153347772013-06-03T16:13:00.000+10:002013-06-05T17:42:18.295+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 4)<h3>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 1 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 2 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-2.html">here</a>.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">
Read Part 3 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-3.html">here</a>.<br />
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<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
Without Civilisation</h3>
The veneer of civilisation surrounding human beings is exceedingly thin. Beneath that veneer we are still basically animals, though animals with a conscience and an innate knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Yet it never ceases to amaze me the depth of cruelty we are capable of inflicting on fellow humans and other living things around us, given the appropriate circumstances.<br />
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I think of myself as a sensitive person, never seeking conflict with others. In fact I will normally go out of my way to avoid conflict of any sort, even verbal conflict, if it is at all possible. Yet I know that I am capable of killing, given sufficient reason. Self preservation or the protection of loved ones or other defenceless people would be sufficient reason. While I don't like to think about it, so would extreme hunger or thirst or the need for shelter. I hope never to be put to the test over those things but I fear such days will come.<br />
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Behind me I have 9 years of military service and I was proud to qualify as a marksman on the FN rifle, known as the SLR Self Loading Rifle when it was the standard infantry weapon of the British armed forces throughout the 1970s. A fine weapon, capable of removing arms and legs or taking out multiple hostiles with a single 7.62mm NATO round if lined up correctly. At the time I was capable of putting 20 out of 20 rounds inside a 2 inch grouping in the middle of a man shaped and sized target at 50 metres even though disadvantaged by being left-handed and left-eyed with a weapon that was made only for right handed use. While my focal capabilities may be diminished today, my eyesight is still healthy and given a modern rifle I am positive that I could cause havoc on any group of hostiles at medium to long range even though I have not handled a firearm in the intervening years. I have never been involved in close combat and at my age I guess I would last no more than a few seconds if that became necessary though I have now equipped myself with certain survival gear and I am confident that I am capable of slitting a throat or two given the element of surprise, if the need arose.<br />
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If I have those capabilities and a recognition, as a rational person, that I would be willing to use them in need, then I know that other folk are at least equally as capable of doing so as myself, given the right conditions. In a crumbling, decaying society at the point of collapse, with most normal services of civilisation gone, perhaps for ever, and a driving need to survive, eat, drink and obtain shelter, those conditions would be rife.<br />
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The lack of respect for, and the apparent lack of fear of law enforcement these days, particularly among the younger generation, is I think a sure sign of a decaying society.<br />
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I could provide esoteric reasons for why I believe this is happening at this particular juncture in our history but this is not the time or place for that.<br />
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I struggled with these thoughts running through my head during what turned out to be a difficult and restless night's sleep and rose early to get them written down before they dissipated as many of my night-time thoughts do. This was not an easy thing for me to do and I am aware that I may regret doing so at a later time. I do however attach a great deal of importance to these thoughts because I think that most people living relatively comfortable lives in the modern world would give little thought to how thin the line is between the human and animal sides of our nature and how easily what may be relatively minor changes in our material circumstances may cause us communally or individually to flick from one to the other, from normal life to survival mode with little warning.<br />
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Many of us may well have have cause to live out this experience in days to come as many of our predecessors have done in times past. We, in the developed nations have enjoyed decades of relative peace and prosperity, lulling us into a false sense of security that it will always be thus. History teaches us, if we care to examine it, that for almost all of mankind's sojourn on this planet, we have lived through times of turmoil and peril, threatened by invasion, barbarism and terror with relatively short periods of calm and peaceful existence. Empires and civilisations have risen and fallen, rarely (if ever) peacefully. Our own civilisation, be assured, is not immune from the same process.<br />
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While I speak of civilisation, let me make it clear that I speak not of individual nations, countries or regions as the term might have indicated in past centuries or millennia. No, I am referring to the global community of mankind, united as at no other time in our history prior to the last few decades or so. Yes, we still recognise individual nations, continental groupings, even tribal boundaries still. There are however, no communities on Earth that are now unaffected by what transpires in other communities, anywhere on the globe. One global civilisation, no part of which is not affected in some way by the successes or failures of some other part. Of course this unification is not in any way set in concrete and when the global collapse is in full swing, as it inevitably must be at some point, national and regional boundaries will again fracture and close ranks for what they see as reasons of self-protection. But none will ever again achieve the prosperity (so called, but tragically based on unsupported mountains of debt) that they enjoyed for such a little while in this current period of globalisation. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">~ : ~ </span></div>
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I thought of finishing this post here and perhaps I should, but I keep promising to get on to something a little more immediate and so I will keep on going for a little while, changing the subject matter. <br />
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<h3>
The need for vigilance</h3>
Our major concern now should be how to place ourselves to give the best prospect of getting through any ensuing period of turmoil that might arise.<br />
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To my mind there are two basic principles for retaining personal safety during a collapse of modern society which are corollaries to each other.<br />
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<ol>
<li>The further away from living and/or working in an urban environment and even more so for a metropolitan environment, the better chance you have to survive a societal collapse situation.</li>
<li>The closer in to a metropolitan environment and to a lesser extent an urban environment that you live and/or work, the lower the chance you have to survive a societal collapse situation.</li>
</ol>
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I should not need to state the following as it is quite obvious, but I will. By far, most of the world's population now live in cities. Cities mostly consist of densely saturated urban areas grouped around even more densely saturated metropolitan centres where people are literally sitting or standing on top of one another in high rise buildings. Every day there is a mass migration from the perimeters of such conglomerations to the centre and back again at the end of the day. Even so, the centres more and more tend to retain a more dense population that the urban extremities, even overnight. </div>
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Imagine, if you will, the following sample situations that may one day confront you.</div>
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You work in a city hub within a large metropolis. You take public transport to work in the morning and return in the evening to your home in an outer suburb. A journey of perhaps 40-50 minutes.</div>
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What would you do if you hear on the evening news or even the morning news before your walk or ride to the commuter station that there are planned demonstrations in the city for around mid-day against job losses at a major industry. There may be severe delays on the commuter lines during the day. This, amid a period of growing community tension over wide ranging government cutbacks. The share markets have been rising faster than at any time previously but this is of little concern to you as you have no share portfolio.</div>
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Do you shrug your shoulders and set off for work as normal? Risking enduring an extended working day as a result of transport delays? Or do you say 'This looks bad, and could get worse. I will ride it out at home just in case.'</div>
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You decide to go to work anyway since you have a season ticket (and a very important job which you can't afford to lose). Can't be as bad as it sounds. You buy your normal coffee-to-go before starting work but the outlet is not accepting plastic cards for some reason. No problem, you have just enough cash to pay for it. Lunch time you go down to the bank because you now don't have cash to buy lunch, but get caught up in the crowds attending the demonstration. This merely delays you, wasting your precious lunch period but you see and hear things that indicate this could get ugly later on. At the ATM you notice it is out of order for some reason and a lot of people are milling around outside the bank, which has armed guards allowing only a few people inside at a time.</div>
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Your lunch time almost gone, do you:</div>
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<ul>
<li>Go back to work hungry, to see if anyone will lend you cash for the snack bar?</li>
<li>Take stock of the situation, realise this is going downhill fast and leave for home while transport is still running?</li>
</ul>
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You return to work. On the grapevine, sometime later you learn that the demonstration has turned into a riot and the city is in gridlock. Do you immediately leave for home hoping to catch transport? Or, do you wait until normal end of work, chancing it to luck?</div>
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You have important stuff to finish and stay on even later than normal knowing that the public transport timetable has regular scheduled times well into the evening. You pack up and head out to the station to find that all services have ceased until further notice. On the street you hear that the share market has crashed and to prevent further runs all banks have closed until further notice.</div>
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You have no cash and no alternative but to walk home, tired and hungry, a journey prospect of some some 9-10 hours making your way through darkened streets that you may never have travelled before, lit by many fires from the rioting which is sporadically still going on in some areas and while most shops are closed, there are already signs of looting and muggings.</div>
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Luck being on your side, you eventually make it home to a frantic and worried family in the early hours of the morning. That is when your problems really start. What do you do next?</div>
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If you have been following this story, at what point would you have pulled the plug and said 'Enough, I'm outta here'? </div>
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Let's change the scenario a little. Your job is the same but now you live in an inner-city apartment. Do you still go to work as normal? If so, do you still work a full day? I suggest that a lot of people would be more prepared to do so than our commuter friend, because you do not face a 10 hour walk home. But are you any safer? You are now stuck in the centre of a riot torn, traffic disrupted metropolis. You still face at least a 10 hour walk to get out of the city and away from the dangers that it holds, but you would be more likely to delay your departure, feeling relatively safe in your apartment. Every day, every hour that you delay, decreases your opportunities to make a safe exit from the turmoil. Within two days there would be widespread looting. Within three days there would be no more food left in the centre. By the fourth day, one week at the outside, the desperate people from the centre would start fanning out in an ever increasing circle to the city limits over time, taking what ever they could find to try to meet their needs. Of course, it wouldn't end there.</div>
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What would you do?</div>
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This may all sound a bit extreme and contrived. Something out of a zombie movie. But there are many ways that something like this could start, not just the few triggering events that I mentioned. Think about it for a while. Such scenarios are possible and they may arise quickly like this case, perhaps even faster than that. They may also play out over extended periods and that perhaps is more dangerous because the changes may not be as perceptible.</div>
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Many of us are so caught up in the minutiae of life that we also would fail to notice the signs of trouble brewing into situations similar to what I have described. The first important lesson to learn from this I think is vigilance. Develop the habit, if you do not do so already, of noticing what is going on around you, in your city or region and in the world in general. Read widely, not just here, about events that could trigger periods of trouble, for your own sake and for those you love.</div>
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-34360775375559678562013-06-02T14:42:00.004+10:002013-06-02T15:33:46.255+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 3)Read Part 1 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a><span style="font-size: small;">.</span><br />
Read Part 2 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/i-need-to-think-about-my-future-part-2.html">here</a>.<br />
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<h3>
Is this where I want to go?</h3>
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Looking back, I see that I have already strayed somewhat from what my original intentions were for this series of posts but that is precisely why I named this blogspot 'Meanderings'. Because that is what I tend to do. Hopefully my writings will circuitously return to where I want to be. Restating my intention, to assist that process, will I hope provide a guide and direction. </div>
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I see ahead a whole range of probable futures. I see my present state and readiness/ unreadiness to face those situations. I am looking for paths to progress from my current state to successfully meet whatever the future may bring. </div>
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How do I define success? Well, by survival, managing to keep body and soul together in working order, in the short term. In the medium term by being able to live in a state of harmless wellbeing, harmoniously prospering (not in terms of wealth or power but in sufficiency in all necessary things) and integrating peacefully with other people and the natural world and perhaps, though not necessarily (I would be happy to achieve even the medium term goal) leading in the long term to some form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La">Shangri-La</a> or possibly even a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala">Shambala</a>. Though not associated with any particular faith other than an awe and reverance for nature. </div>
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I suspect some of the above may attract criticism but we all have our own personal dreams and I am entitled to mine.</div>
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Why am I doing this publicly on a blog? A thought came to me this morning and at the risk of being thought a pompous fool (if that is not already the case), I will relate my journey to that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everyman">Everyman</a>, that non-gender specific person with whom we can all identify. Ridiculous thought really since I have already admitted that I think of myself as being different to most people. But then, we all probably do that to some extent. </div>
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However on a more generic level, the sort of things that I have, and will continue to talk about, are the very things that I believe 'Everyman' will need to take into account in their own journey into the future. With that in mind I will press ahead.</div>
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<h3>
Aside</h3>
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Before continuing, I want to mention some news I heard this morning.</div>
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Firstly it appears that all children born from this year, 2013, will be known as Generation Alpha. They are expected to be smarter, richer and healthier than previous generations and there are so far, 300,000 of them in Australia alone, surpassing even the baby boom of 1947. Who decides how to name these things? And what happened to Gen-Z? Or did that sound too final and apocalyptic? Who says these children are going to be superior to all others in many ways? What evidence do they have to say those things? The recent evidence would indicate that future generations are more likely to be dummed down, subject to more and worse diseases, and have to scramble for a smaller and smaller share of the ever shrinking wealth pie. I have on several occasions urged young women to carefully consider not bearing children at this time because of the dangers they will face. It seems the world's womenfolk are not listening. Over population is already one of the highest rated problems that we face as a species. Sad, sad, sad. But makes my work all the more urgent.</div>
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Secondly, I watched on the TV news, demonstrations and riots in four major cities in as many different countries this morning. If this is not indicative of a society in collapse then I do not know what is. These are almost daily occurrences that I believe are set to worsen as time progresses. A society turning on itself is not a society that is likely to grow and as soon as growth stops or falters, the whole crumbling edifice of corruption and greed will fall. This is not the society that I was born into. It would be quite unrecogniseable to my mother if she were in a state where she could take an active interest in such things. There is no doubt in my mind that we are on the edge of a period of revolution, anarchy and mayhem the like of which has never been seen before and the western nations, despite their military strength and growing police state tactics, being in a largely already bankrupt state, will be powerless to stop it from tearing our cosy world apart. I can only hope that once the floodgates open, it will be quickly over. Otherwise there will be very few of us left to pick up the pieces and start again.</div>
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These things are timely reminders to me as to why I am doing this blog and taking the actions that I do.</div>
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I think I will leave it there for today and start from where I said I would in the previous post in the next one.</div>
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8200454995887308398.post-15777018366147001722013-06-01T17:12:00.000+10:002013-06-02T15:12:35.079+10:00I Need To Think About My Future (Part 2)Read Part 1 <a href="http://me-and-er-ings.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/i-need-to-think-about-my-future.html">here</a>.<br />
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Recap</h3>
I began this line of reasoning in the first post of this series by outlining something of my personal situation and by beginning to detail certain reasons for me to take serious thought about my future.<br />
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The fragility of the global financial system and the possible impacts of another failure following on from the Global Financial Crisis on my personal income through consequent government and commercial collapses, were discussed. The need for preparations to endure and overcome such events was raised.<br />
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I posed the question 'What Else?' then closed off the post and went to bed.<br />
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This morning marked the start of a wet weekend and also, being 1 June, the first day of Winter in the southern hemisphere cultural calendar (though this seems to be just an arbitrary date chosen for convenience and bears no relationship to nature's solsticial calendar). There being nothing worthwhile or demanding of my presence to do outside, I had to choose whether to continue with this writing or play Company of Heroes or Borderlands 2 as a form of escapism from these disturbing issues.<br />
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Sometimes I wonder why I put myself under this form of pressure but I resolved to continue the work while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind and made myself a freshly ground cup of real organic coffee as a reward. I can always 'escape' a little later. <br />
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Continuing where we left off...<br />
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What Else?</h3>
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Well, there are any number of different aspects of life that can be affected by various possible futures. Have I thought of all of them? I doubt it. There are also many of these situations that are basically outside of the sphere of things that I/we can control. In those cases we either relocate if that is possible and there is somewhere that we can relocate to, we bunker down to ride out the worst effects, if we have the means, and consider that a safe thing to do, or, if there is no alternative or we don't care or we do not attach sufficient weight to the possibility of such events arising in our neck of the woods, we get steamrollered by overtaking events. </div>
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I find that it is most beneficial to concentrate on stuff that we have the capacity to exercise some form of control over. Let's think of some of those things.</div>
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Just for a while imagine that some of the possible events I spoke about in the previous post were taking place now. That's not hard to do and it is not a case of 'if' but more of 'when' they might occur. This may seem to be remote thinking here in Australia but if you were a European or even an American citizen, your focus on the imminence or even the reality of such things may be quite different. Don't take the view that 'Hey, the equity markets are higher than they have ever been, so things are looking up'. Wasn't it just that way before the last crash? Aren't we just setting ourselves up for another? Do you think the unemployed of Europe and the US, many of whom used to be relatively well off professional middle class people, are thinking of equity markets right now? No, they are struggling to survive on government handouts on a daily basis. Collapse and poverty are real. Equity markets are Fairy Floss. </div>
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Perhaps these circumstances would become more real to more people if there were to be a sudden change, like all of this were to happen tomorrow. Then what would we do? Could that happen? I can see, and have read, of many ways that could occur. However, history tells us that societies and civilisations do not generally crumble overnight. Occasionally they do, but more often it takes an average of 150 years as John Michael Greer explains in his book <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Long_Descent.html?id=71gWAQAAIAAJ">The Long Descent: A User's Guide To The End Of The Industrial Age</a>.</div>
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It could be argued that this civilisation started to disintegrate after the end of the Second World War and there are enough signs that we are on the path of collapse today that might indicate that we are approaching the halfway point towards total societal collapse, the good half or the least worst half of that path having already been experienced. It would be a mistake I think to expect anything to improve over the next 75 years and conditions are very likely to get considerably more uncomfortable the further we progress down that path, other factors not yet mentioned notwithstanding.</div>
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Imagine this...</h3>
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So, you find yourself at some point (doesn't matter if this happens quickly or over some considerable period) with no job, and most other people, your neighbours, your friends, your extended family, are in the same boat. The shops are empty because transport businesses have shut down (for any number of reasons). Most of the police have gone home to protect their families (and because they are no longer being paid). The army is largely overseas fighting some (now) meaningless war and there is no early prospect of getting most of them back home. Doctors and nurses have almost all walked off the job for the same reasons as the police. Banks and their ATMs have closed doors because too many people are trying to withdraw their savings and there is not enough real money to allow that to happen (I have written about that elsewhere). There is no electricity because the diesel fuel to run the trains that bring the coal to the power stations has run out and the coal mines also can't operate their machinery to mine more coal and the refineries or fuel storage facilities cannot produce/receive more stocks or are shut down for use only by military or essential services by the government. You have run out of petrol and the service station pumps don't work (no electricity) or are empty due to no delivery of fuel. Your domestic taps stop channelling water because the pumping stations have no power. Streets and major intersections are gridlocked because traffic lights stopped working and cars are left where they ran out of fuel. Public transport has ceased to exist. The children are wailing because they are hungry (and/or bored - no TV or electronic games). You can't flush your toilets and even if you could you finished your last roll of toilet paper yesterday. Grandma needs more heart medication. Your partner needs a new asthma puffer. You can't get any news about what is happening. Even if you have some form of food left you have no way to cook it now.</div>
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What the fuck do you do?</div>
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Ah, don't worry. The government will sort it all out soon. Don't bet on it. They are probably most of the reason it happened in the first place. Of course they are simply a reflection of society so it is all your fault too.</div>
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I repeat, without expletive this time and in all seriousness, what do you do?</div>
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I will tell you what most people would do. They would panic. They would go out and steal what they needed if they could find it and in not too short a time, when they have become desperate enough, they would be prepared to injure and/or kill to get it. Public safety would devolve into how well you could protect yourself or how prepared you are to beat the shit out of someone else.</div>
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This is not a pretty picture.</div>
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Of course, those who had the foresight to prepare for such eventualities or those who had been told about such things and had listened and also taken some action to make ready just in case, would be in a much better position to get through (survive) the initial holocaust that would ensue if even just some of these conditions prevailed. Please don't think that I have listed all of the possibilities for systemic failure above. I am sure you are capable of adding your own items to the scenario given some thought. This I urge you to do.</div>
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I have personally, by and large, taken steps to prepare for just this type of mayhem. Steps that you can also take will be discussed next. </div>
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Bernie Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12387970457335825568noreply@blogger.com2