stevieo's gopherhole

Past Lives And Memories.txt

18 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Past Lives and Memories
August 18th, 2021
----------------------------------------

Lately, memories of the past 25 years feel more discombobulated. I feel less 
connected to who I was, like more of an observer but remembering as if I had 
woken up from a dream. I've recently started calling the experiences I've had 
my past lives.

This mostly comes from my adulthood experiences. When I revisit my childhood
homestead and the wilderness we still camp in, I feel connected to it in a 
direct sense. The essence of it comes back to me readily. I can see why people
develop a bond and connection to their native land and environment -- that's
what I feel. My environmental activism stems from this connection.

I've lived in a number of different countries and had experiences that would
have been incredibly remote to me growing up. It is precisely those
experiences, and memories of them, that feel dreamlike. When I reflect on who
I felt I was, it's like I was experiencing being a different person -- from a
different life.

Some of the memories come to me like a half-forgotten TV show, flashes of 
images and visual stimulus. Did that show really air? I look through old
photographs, tens of thousands I've taken in the past couple of decades, and
I rewatch those old shows. I lived that life of that person, who was me, and
partly, still is me -- yet, different.

I'm not sure if this stems from the pandemic, the state of the world today, or
it's just a part of getting older and having more experiences behind me now.

How this view affects me is in how I approach the present. I pause a little
more often. I write things down more too. I don't take as many photographs. I
am trying to be more selective with visual imagery. I've felt drawn to doing
more with my hands -- writing, drawing, and making things. I feel an urge to
take up and learn various crafts.

This all ties together for me but I haven't quite connected the dots yet. I
can't quite put my finger on it but I feel like I'm encouraging myself to take
new perspectives on things, looking at my own life from different lenses, and
hopefully, being the better for it.

What Comes Next.txt

11 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
What comes next?
August 11th, 2021
----------------------------------------
Where have all the Pre-Raphaelites gone? It is time for you to return.

Bring on a brand new renaissance 'cause I think I'm ready.

Reading List For July 2021.txt

15 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Reading list for July 2021
July 15th, 2021
----------------------------------------

Numero Zero
 - Umberto Eco

Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism
 - Umberto Eco

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
 - Thich Nhat Hanh

Making the Attikamek Snowshoe
 - Henri Vaillancourt

Light, Gesture, & Color
 - Jay Maisel

Attack Surface
 - Cory Doctorow

Woodland Holiday.txt

01 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Woodland Holiday
July 01st, 2021
----------------------------------------
After 5 days in the remote woods I feel renewed. It was time spent reading,
writing, reflecting, whittling wood, fishing for supper, taking in the forests,
listening to brooks bubbling and birds singing, and mosquitos buzzing.

Butterflies and bees were abundant, so were fireflies at night. Mother grouse
with their flocks of fledgelings were common sights. A baby black bear came by
to say hello before running off again. Momma bear was not too far off.

In a time of mourning and bereavement, that we are currently experiencing in
Canada, this time was to let the native land in, to reflect on being part of it
-- we belong to the land, more than the land belongs to us.

I want to carry this with me always. The world goes in directions I cannot
follow. Living with freedom means living with the choice to not be forced to
follow when one cannot.

When the forest and the land is decimated and sick, I am decimated and sick.
When the forest and the land is vibrant and alive, I am vibrant and alive.
I come from it, I grew in it, and one day I will go back to it.
I hope to have the courage to speak up for it and protect it.

Thoughts On The Digital World.txt

22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Thoughts on the Digital World
June 22nd, 2021
----------------------------------------

This is a brain dump. The following contains a stream of consciousness that I just wanted to get out but it's not in any coherent form. I've been thinking about what you're about to read for a long time but I haven't put the words down yet. I'm hoping this provides for catharsis.

I thought computers would always be an integral part of my life
I use them every day
I made my livelihood using computers with my beginnings as a precocious teenager
For over a quarter of a century

The Internet was my source of information and entertainment
I always saw it as the greatest invention
A tool connecting all of us together
The world would be better for it

Now I'm not so sure
In its current form, I'm using the Internet less and less. It's not a happy place. It's a source of "what could have been" in my mind.
There's a reason I'm posting this on gopher.

As a source of information, I still use the web as a reference book. I look-up many things, but less and less often. I'm losing interest in trying to navigate the cesspools of ads and adware, malvertising, tracking and popups, affiliate links, outrage, and reactionary writing. I don't want to wade through any of it.
As a source of news, I'm completely disillusioned. I want to be informed, but one can't keep up with the state-of-the-world on a minute-by-minute basis.
As a source of audio/video content, I've almost abandoned all the usual spaces--e.g. YouTube.
As a source of socializing, commercial social media is the worst.
As a source of entertainment, I've given up on video and music services, I don't play online games anymore, I barely play computer games--they've lost their appeal.
As a source of goods, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated. I just want to buy specific things through the web. I don't want to be tracked while doing so, I don't want to solve puzzles to prove I'm human--just take my money.

I've been an avid digital photographer for the past 2 decades. I've lost interest and rarely shoot nowadays and I'm considering going back to film.

Until I reinstalled my Mac with Linux, I would sometimes open tcpdump and watch the traffic go by. The constant phoning home, checking in, transmitting "telemetry", telling me what I can and can't do with my computer. I don't want a computer like this. I can't bring myself to run Apple or Microsoft products because of this.

There are a few spaces online that give me hope, that aren't invaded and interrupted by adware, greed, malvertising, and the cesspool that has become large swaths of the web, and I am grateful. Gopher and IRC, a few dozen websites I still visit regularly or subscribe to via RSS. I don't want to venture beyond that. I don't want to just consume what I read or hear or see, I want to reflect on it as well. The internet and its feeds aren't conducive to that essence of life.

I don't want to subject my kids to it either. This is getting increasingly hard to avoid. Every little-league team, community activity, and even getting vaccinated, requires agreeing to a privacy policy because of the third party software and services used to run them are operated by foreign corporations. Many which clearly state in their policies that the data is used for marketing, or it's sold, and it's used to build profiles that go beyond their specific use.

I think that a computer programmer developing an aversion for computers is not generally a good thing.
I consider my "career" at the moment to be that of a homemaker parent. My secondary job, is that of a part-time computer professional.

I'm happier when I disconnect from the computer, disconnect from the internet, read paper books, work with hand tools, spend time in the forests, in the marshes and fields, running, biking, hiking, swimming, jumping, exploring, connecting with people one-on-one, writing letters, sending postcards.

The value of the ephemeral computer information is fleeting and vanishing for me. The value of the tangible and tactile is awakening in me and I don't want to exchange the real time I have in this world for the virtual. I have to see the use of a computer as a means to an end, with a result and benefit and objective translating into what I do with my living senses, and not as a reality in it's own right -- "We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam."

My Loneliness.txt

23 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
My Loneliness
May 23rd, 2021
----------------------------------------

The fibres soak in a poisoned well
A free flowing river now dammed to a trickle
I mask my revulsion of what drank of this pool
The decaying corpses I can no longer stomach
Though the butchers pronounce them otherwise

I struggle to partake in this meal
Knowing how the sausage is made
Lead laced and foul
Ground from innocent flesh
Contributing to a growing sickness

A vegetarian in a carnivorous world
Neighbourly yet despised when spoken up
Not asking for forgiveness to browse and forage
Yet condescension the endeavours receive
So I take the long way around

O brave new world

On Famous Quotes.txt

24 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
On Famous Quotes
April 24th, 2021
----------------------------------------

I have to admit that many of the philosophers, thinkers, and writers of books
that have stood the test of time, I only know through the famous quotes
they've left behind. I call that my "motivational poster knowledge" of them.

How many people quote Plato or Aristotle, Kant or Kierkegaard, Thoreau or
Ruskin, Orwell or Huxley, without having read their works but cited them
by quotation alone? I have been guilty of this. And have lost all nuance and
the context from which they came in the process.

This hit me like a ton of bricks when reading Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It's
a book most people have heard of and many have quoted as the book about the
burning of books. It gets boiled down to being called a treatise on
censorship. But it's more than just a monograph on the subject.

I read Montag's subway trip and his first meeting with Faber a dozen times
because of how pivotal it is in the book and how insightful it is in general.
When ideas from the mid-20th century relate in such a prescient manner to our
current Internet era, I am immediately drawn to them. I am pulled into a
mindset of self-reflection and thoughts of changing my relationship with the
Internet--to be more diligent and thoughtful--much in the same way Faber
describes as important for books and our relationship to them.

Quotes can also miss the deeper allegories and general symbolism in the book.
Much in the same way fireman can go from putting out fires to the ones who
burn houses and books and start the fires. Warnings and insights about the
problems of their day, when written allegorically and understood by the reader
can lead to making sense of present circumstances from a more careful and
considered perspective. However, any sufficiently complex problems require
some time and careful consideration which simple quotes and immediate response
will not suffice.

When ideas get boiled down too far their meanings are lost--they're burned--
like syrup turned to an inpenetrable rock of sugar. Or like books in a house
doused in kerosene. The immediacy of the feed-driven comment-and-response,
such as the Internet's social media sites, elicits and provokes response
without reflection. Deeper discourse and long-form nuanced ideas are glossed-
over. Books on the subjects being discussed are not needed.

Long form journalism and essays are also interspersed with advertising like
"Denham's Dentifrice", much like Montag's train ride. Sitting down to discuss
these ideas nowadays is equally interrupted by smartphones chiming in their
notifications and message alerts from elsewhere. A train-of-thought becomes
a train-of-stops losing passengers along the way and conversations that
restart having gone nowhere.

At home, the parlour walls are the 10-13" screens carried everywhere from the
kitchen, to living room, to bedroom, and every hallway inbetween. The
senseless stories of the Netflix and Disney dramas turning us into Mildreds.

"To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent
to grading the whole surface of the planet." -- Thoreau (Walden, 1854)

Quotations can be useful as a dash of salt in a larger dish. They can bring
out a flavour. But they cannot replace it. They are a part of the nuance of
flavours that pull us in to a tasty dish. Those who have written them and
shared them likely did so originally to highlight something they related to.
Don't quote nor consume them verbatim but let them draw us in.

I want to avoid becoming a Mildred in this world. I want to live deliberately,
not as a consumer so that corporations may be enriched, caught by hair-spring
triggers of my own traps trying to catch comfort and convenience.

"I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish
to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep
and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as
to put to rout all that was not life..."

Reading Ruskin Thoreau.txt

14 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Reading - Ruskin, Thoreau, et al
April 14th, 2021
----------------------------------------

The Stones of Venice
 - John Ruskin

Walden
 - Henry David Thoreau

Mortise & Tenon Magazine: Issue 10
 - https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/

Fahrenheit 451
 - Ray Bradbury

Five Questions April 2021.txt

30 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Five Questions - April 2021
March 30th, 2021
----------------------------------------

Taken from: gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~christina/index.gmi

1. Can you miss what you never had?

Yes. That's close to the definition of regret. I often miss things I didn't do
when I had the opportunity. Regret is sometimes what drives me to not miss 
other opportunities in the present.

2. Have you reinvented yourself after the end of a long personal (cohabiting)
relationship? If not, do you know someone who has? Describe the steps of 
reinvention.

Yes. Remembering what made me happy prior to the relationship and
reconnecting with those parts of my life. Getting in touch with old friends
and relatives I may have lost touch with--especially ones I was close to in
childhood. I guess it's more of a remembering who I am as an individual, 
rather than a reinvention.

3. I most look forward to book-trawling and geocaching with new local (and old
local, like Washington State!) friends. What do you most look forward to doing
when restrictions end?

Book-trawling and geocaching sounds like fun. I'm most looking forward to 
visiting friends and relatives I hadn't seen since before the pandemic began.

4. What's the best surprise you received in March 2021?

After unsuccessfully searching for a hard-to-find out-of-print book in the 
usual online places, I tracked down the author and bought it directly. He 
mailed it to me (along with some DVDs he produced) and getting it in the mail
was the highlight of March 2021.

5. How many interests (i.e. passions, activities, hobbies, pursuits) at 
minimum should a person have to be interesting? What percentage of shared
interests renders a person appealing or intriguing to you?

"Be curious, not judgmental." - Walt Whitman

What is most interesting to me is not the specific interests but the shared
curiosity in each other's interests. Curiosity drives my interest in other
people and what keeps someone close is their reciprocated curiosity in me.

Home Workout Circuit.txt

07 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Home Workout Circuit
March 07th, 2021
----------------------------------------

With no access to a gym and my fitness taking a hit over this past year,
I had to come up with something to make up for it. I'm also nursing a
recurring hamstring injury that flares up when I run :(

The circuit:

10 lunges (each leg) holding medicine ball
25 pushups
50 crunches
20 squats holding med ball
20 calf raises
20 glute bridges
10 3-step wall sprints
20 bird dogs
20 plank shoulder taps
20 stride ups on platform/block
20 supermans

If I'm pressed for time, I try to at least get two rounds in--but
ideally I like to get through three times.

Current Reading List.txt

16 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Current Reading List
February 16th, 2021
----------------------------------------

The Woodland Homestead 
 - Brett McLeod

Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use 
 - Toshio Odate

A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity 
 - Wm. S. Coperthwaite

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered 
 - E.F. Schumacher

The Lost Wilderness: Rediscovering W.F. Ganong's New Brunswick 
 - Nicholas Guitard

Stranger in a Strange Land 
 - Robert Heinlein

There's a back-to-the-land theme threading through most of this list. 
That's where my head is at these days.

Thinking Xor Doing.txt

27 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Thinking XOR Doing
January 27th, 2021
----------------------------------------

The year 2020 was a year of reflection and deeper contemplation about many 
things that crossed my mind. I went down many a rabbit hole of ideas. I
needed that. But by the end of the year I felt I had pondered the big and
difficult questions in my life enough.

It's time for me to 'do'.

Instead of being deep in contemplation, I want to let go of the thoughts and
work towards realizing the thoughts. It's not that I didn't get anything
done in 2020--I did a lot! I'm happy about what I accomplished but I want
to do more and do it differently.

My resolution for 2021:

I want to use my hands, my tools, and my actions to make things, and not
spend so much time in worry, procrastination, deep thought, and going down
rabbit-holes of ideas--don't overthink things, just do.

My disciplines for 2021:

1. When I want to reflect, phlog it. Let writing be the action of
contemplation.

2. When I'm not sure what to do, don't faff about. Don't procrastinate.

3. Make physical things as often as possible. I want to take my woodworking
up a notch in 2021.

4. Write code, contribute and share code. I was a programmer by trade. Start
acting like it again.

Almost a month in to 2021 as I write this and it's going fairly well so far.
What prompted me to write this now is I've started to slip over the past
week and the writing helps me refocus.

A quote to leave you with:

"An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory."
-- E. F. Schumacher

Hello Gopher.txt

23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

----------------------------------------
Hello, Gopher!
January 23rd, 2021
----------------------------------------

I've only just begun.