I'm back working in the electrical field. It's going to take me a bit to get back into the swing of things working. I have to get up super early and drive 62 miles to the job site, work all day, then drive home. The above picture was taken on the drive home my first day on the job this week. Those are the mountains of West Virginia, and you drive through them on the interstate.
(above picture is a hillside near my new job site)
My body is worn out, I'm tired, and depression is over my shoulder trying to get me in a choke hold. My brain keeps whispering that the only meaning mankind (in the USA) has found in life is to work, pay bills, and elect politicians who want us to just work, pay bills, and worship the rich. That alone, is depressing....and how could you not feel like a peasant?
I have to work on my disgust with the rich man who "always needs more money and is always bitter at the poor man." It's not good to carry those feelings. It's not good for the body or mind. It's just been a casual bad habit of mine for several years. Haha. The good thing is, nature is always there to say, "Hey!! snap out of it, man!! Enjoy life beyond the cultural programming!! Enjoy the real!! Look around and get a sense of the impersonal silent life-force in everything and everyone, animating everything in this miracle of existence.........or something!!" :D
I just thought I'd share a quick update from my week. Life is NOT "just so," but it is interesting.....so look for the "interesting" around you. It helps me anyway.
(all pictures taken by me, and are all taken in WV)
I feel you, mate.
Even if the system seems to make us feel like serfs in some neo-feudalistic society, they may have power over finances, but they cannot control your mind and your heart so don't let them have that power too.
As Ben Harper sapientially said, "You gotta fight for your mind" and Bob Marley wisely sang, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds..."
It's up to us whether we give over control of everything or not.
You seem like a great spiritual warrior who has yet to fully tap into your incredible wellspring of inner power.
It's important to focus on what's right in front of you and look at those views and deeply breathe in all that glorious nature!
You're right! Nature heals the wounded warrior.
Thanks for bravely sharing your heart and mind!
Blessings and smilesin joyNathanNK
Thank you, Nathan. You keep doing what you're doing as well. This place has lots of room to create a new culture. I will be back this weekend to spend more time here.
I think you've take steps in the right direction, participating of this blockchain, of our discord server... its all part of the peaceful rebellion against the system that failed us long ago.
Amen brother. I like that thought of "peaceful rebellion."
In the end, good outlook, friend! I hope you kick depressions ass and kill it at the new (old) job! Best of luck
Thank you. Many best wishes to you as well. :)
It's so hard not to fall into that dark hole that the government digs for us. It's 6 feet down and sometimes it feels like you're already sitting there at the bottom, dirt crumbling down around you.
But hopefully there is always someone who can reach their hand down and help pull you out. Or at least sit down there with you for awhile. You're going to get out of the hole, brother. I promise.
Your pictures are always so beautiful. Your little videos too of the river and such.
I'm so happy to see you posting:). I hope you don't get too worn out from all the work and driving. At least it does seem to be a gorgeous drive. 💚
Hugs and lots of love!!
🍪-serena
Thank you so much, sister Serena! :) Yes, the drive is awesome. I have plenty of time to talk to myself in multiple funny voices, creating entertaining self-banter and everything. All that's missing are the puppets. That'd be dangerous on the interstate though. :D I am going to have to write down a list of folks to get notices from Gina so I know when those people post. My feed is full of many resteems and I know I won't have time to dedicate scrolling through a week's worth of resteems to see people's original posts.
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I have so many memories of the road. Living in the area around Western, NC up to Tennessee, and sometimes further South down to Georgia. My mind is full of memories of scenes like this all the way back to childhood. Honestly, it's one of the main defining memories of my childhood. Living so far from things, having made day trips to go some place, and the trees and headlights passing by on the dark drive home at night.
But for my adult life, the road mostly only reminds me of work. Places I've worked, and the drive to get there. Usually long, waking up before daylight every day to drive two hours (or sometimes more) to some site, or to start my route on the road all day. And the most poignant of those memories for me have been alone. Or feeling alone, in some way, among some group of people I'd been working with that year, or on that job.
Some memory of driving to get somewhere to begin, or driving to get somewhere to end the day. Always on some time contrasting with those around me. Passing people in suits leaving their jobs at 5:00 knowing I wouldn't be home till long after dark, or for days. Knowing I still had hours to go, miles to go. Or taking a break by some newly discovered spot where I just wanted to stop to stare for a while, or maybe explore on foot, or some memorized favorite exit on the highway I knew like the back of my hand.
So much of my life has passed in those places. In travelling the road itself. And I think in some way there's always been a comfort in it, because there's a feeling always like you're going somewhere, getting somewhere - moving. Even if it is just a more protracted 'back and forth' than what most people do in a day on their usual commute. It's a hopeful kind of forward movement. And I do know the feeling as the years have passed, of that having changed - from the initial youthful feeling of thinking the whole world is ahead to be discovered, to more of a soothing familiar feeling of escape. Escape from a daily life back home that hasn't changed much, or gone as far, or to the places I'd hoped it might go. Whether satisfied in a situation or not, every day driving back and forth hoping for the things that might change, and for the future ahead you think you're working to build.
And yeah, after many years have passed, the same realization has happened to me too. I've realized while working, that the best part of my day was that drive. That moment of coming or going. And I learned to revel in it, or at least comfort myself with it, intentionally. With my love of music and nature, I found it as a way to combine enjoyment of the two. And I honestly think this reality is a uniquely American thing. And even unique to our working class. The American highway and road is such a poetic thing - and such a privilege of ours considering what money we sink into our cars, and our fuel, and other amenities, and the road itself (hah, sometimes) - and a place to get lost and find yourself all at the same time. In different ways, often while going to or from a place you've been many times before. No drive is exactly the same. No day is either. And maybe that's why such a routine has a draw to it. I know many who have only ever worked this way, (truck drivers, and tradespeople, and restless people) and I don't think they'd last a day working any other way. Like a rat all the same, but maybe just more trapped.
The natural world around us is so breathtakingly beautiful, and free...of money and constraint...and most of all, us. At least where we allow it to be. (And I'm partial to the Appalachian area, myself.) But it's what we've made of it that's so ugly.
On my last job, I had a routine of going outside at a certain point in the day, had to walk a little for that task, and I'd made a ritual of looking at what was around me, even photographing it if I found a reason or had a minute. And it's what kept me going, and kept me positive and thankful, besides the fact of watching all those around me doing the same thing, in the same boat working. I think one of the biggest flaws in my thinking in the past, was to ever doubt that those around me experienced the same feelings that I did. I think very many of us are in the same proverbial boat, or car, or whatever it may be in life moving us - to get somewhere. Trying to get from one place or point to another.
Because...only because, this is the world we've made for ourselves. I've felt the same way for a very long time. Every single day. It's ugly and hard, and we all know there's a better way, (and surely a worse), but as long as you remind yourself at the same time how beautiful it is, I think you'll get by alright.
It's the only way I've ever found. It's the most natural way I found to cope with things. And it's all I'm going to say about it, unless you want me to start musing on train journeys too.
You might be a peasant to some, but you're the backbone to this country, and the only reason the rich have any money at all. We all are. It's out of balance and it's never been 'right', and I think we all feel it in some way. To find healthy ways of coping is the best advice I can think to give, because I've seen all too much what becomes of those who don't.