Blossoms

I had thought that time

would fade the past; yet I find

the trees blooming yet.

2019 Garden Update

Thought I would show you a quick update on the progress of the Spring Garden:

My Lime trees survived the Winter!  And are supporting new growth!

Two volunteer leeks that showed up - and will be in leek pie soon:

Beans, Black Eyed Peas, and others doing well:

Onions starting to do their thing:

Overwintered Garlic:

 Volunteer lettuce:

 Asparagus popped up in a hurry:

All the grains are doing nicely even after the late start:

Overall, I am very pleased with how planting a month earlier than I have done in the past has worked out.

Random Economic Thoughts I

Some random economic thoughts:

1)  Retail, on the whole, is dying.  If you have a bit of interest, I might recommend you check out dailyjobcuts.com.  It keeps a running tab on closures, layoffs, and bankruptcies. 

Beyond just this basic observational basis - name a single mainline or Big Box store that has not had some level of layoffs or closures - I have the most interesting note from The Ravishing Mrs. TB on local malls:  "They are 50% empty of stores, and what is left is mostly junk). 

Realistically of course, blame the InterWeb - but not really.  Blame stores that have made it a pain to shop there or return there versus Amazon, which is effectively creating an ecosystem where one almost never need shop outside of its confines:  Clothes?  Check.  Food?  Check.  Gadgets?  Check.  Entertainment via books or streaming?  Check.  Fresh fruit and vegetables?  If you live within delivery distance of a Whole Foods, Check.

Who wants to deal with crowds when you can practically do it all from your home?

2)  As a result of 1) and in conjunction with it, the minimum wage job is dying as well.

Why?  Retail is one of the highest users of the minimum wage, and those jobs are going away.  Food service?  Believe me, the move to kiosks in places like McDonald's or Wendy's are here to stay.  As the cost of labor increases, the push to automation will grow - as will the continued growth of services that deliver food (via things like Ubereats). 

The decline in minimum wage affects two groups:  the unskilled and the just starting out (via graduations).  Where before these jobs were available to reflex to, they will begin to vanish.

3)  Autonomous, electric vehicles and the push for them is not going away.  Never mind they are not economical and environmentally destructive, they will keep coming up until they get close to being right and then the press will be on for us to adopt them - first cities, of course (you just need to make "driven" cars illegal downtown), then out to the suburbs.

Who does this impact?  The list is rather long.  Auto industries, of course - with autonomous vehicles the need to "buy" a new car becomes less, combined with ridesharing (e.g. Uber, Lyft).  Any service which involves a driver - taxis, limousines, even the aforementioned Uber and Lyft.  Any industry touching an automobile - auto dealerships, oil change shops, even service shops.  And delivery services, eventually.

4)  Who is not impacted in all of this?  The trades, for now - yes, automation continues to march forward but much like the assembly line, things have to be standardized before they can be impacted by automation (for example, plumbing and electric wiring are run per builder, but there are many builders and many older homes).  Science and tech workers, for now - but give Artificial Intelligence time and between automation and AI, many basic science and tech jobs will vanish as well. 

There will always be the outliers of course - small botique shops, those catering to the wealthy or well off, and the underlayer that people like myself frequent - used book stores, discount and thrift shops, etc.  But I suspect the next twenty years will find millions of unskilled and skilled laborers out of work and with little or no opportunity to re-enter the workforce.

And then ask the logical question:  What happens next?

God Makes A Way

A Few Words From...Calvin Miller

"Decision is the key to destiny.

'God, can you be merciful and send me off to hell and lock me in forever?'

'No Pilgrim, I will not send you there, but if you chose to to there, I could never lock you out.'"

- The Singer

Experience

The Collapse XVII: Vacation

25 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

My apologies for the delay in writing. For the first time in years, I took a vacation.

Yes yes, I understand – you have often commented that my whole life at this point seems to be one long vacation of doing what I want to do – fair enough, I have often said the same thing myself. But I made the decision – right after the refugees I informed you of in the last letter – to make a trip to some of the places I love here that are farther away.

Yellowstone – You remember Yellowstone of course, we went there on your last visit. I had a longing to go there again – not so much for the natural wonders (as amazing as they are, of course) as for the buffalo. And I found both – and the park strangely deserted. Where before there were literally thousands of cars there were merely tens of them. I had no problem or issue getting anywhere or seeing anything I desired. The buffalo were there, placidly moving in their herds the way they did long before Westerners ever arrived.

The other place I needed to go, of course, was the Little Bighorn.

The monument was even more deserted than I had expected – it was myself and two other people, wandering among the headstones of the US Calvary and Sioux Warriors. The grass was brown and dry and blew in the wind, perhaps like it did almost 150 years ago. The wind whispered the voices of warriors of both sides, long dead, watching.

In a very meaningful way, these sorts of trips were walks into a past that was rapidly approaching into our future.

These were day trips for me of course, and I am sure that you will wonder at the wanton waste of fuel for each of them. I somewhat wonder at it myself – but comfort myself with the thought that I do not know when, if ever, I will be able to go again. At least they can now always live in my memory.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Done With Entertainment

So last night I was watching one of my Animes on Netflix that I have come to watch.  At this point it had become a little bit tiresome and was dragging on, but I was sticking with it to the bitter end.  And then, just like that, it ended - on an radically modern correct note.

And I was done.

This absence from media has been a great boon to me, although a struggle as well.  But as I think about it, this has become the next logical step.

Entertainment, it seems, is always reflective of the age in which is was created.  And media for last 10 years at least has definitely come to reflect society as a whole.

I cannot, in good conscious, support it any more.

And so, I am done.

Two aspects of this, really. The first is that I am done - really done - with Netflix and Hulu.  If I do not own it, I will not watch it.  Which means I will be watching a lot less.

The second is that my timespan of watching just shrank a great deal.  Pretty much anything prior to 1985, I suppose.  Maybe occasional exceptions - one of my favorites The Thirteenth Warrior was made in the 1990's - but on the whole, I stop there.

The good news is, I just got a great deal of my time back.

Yes, I know.  This will not really stop the advance of anything.  Society will continue on with its business and ignore me by my lack of support.

Strangely enough, I find myself more and more okay with this.  It may be a bubble, but I find it to be one that I can function in and focus on what really matters.

A Funny Thing Happened To Me On The Way To Work....

...more specifically, A Funny Thing Happened To Me At Work.

My boss sits down.  "Good job, keep up the good work."  Hands me a piece of paper.

Turns out I have been promoted.  To Vice President, Quality.

Wow.

I have been at this just over 21 years.  I started as a Research Associate 1, scraping labels off of bottles in a research lab. 

Of course, nothing is free.  All the responsibility is on me - but in reality, it always was.  And I have a great deal to do and be responsible for - but then again, I always did.

Vice President.  This is a high as I pretty much every figured I was going to reach.

Go me.

Your New Life Is Going To Cost You

Hat Tip:  Aware Wolf

This wandered across my consciousness this weekend.  I looked at it, thought it was rather useful, and sent it along to others,

And then, I actually started to think about it. What a devastatingly profound statement.

Christians, of course, are familiar with the concept of this:  "We are buried with Christ in His death, we are raised with Him into newness of life" we say in some form or fashion every Sunday.  But we make the rather painful mistake of not realizing it applies to every aspect of our life.

It works this way in Nature, of course:  the tadpole surrenders it life to the frog, the caterpillar surrenders its life to the butterfly.  The change in nature - indeed, the change in form - is something that we have actually embraced and use as a symbol of the newness of life, of the ability to change.
We forget that, much like Cortes and his ships, they have burned everything and have no choice but to move forward.

It is true of us as well.

The simple - and rather painful - reality is that when we make a life change, be it by choice or forced, it eventually costs us our old one.

Oh, we may not think so at first:  we continue to maintain the relationships, do the activities, and believe that somehow we are continuing to bridge the gap between the two. But time, that revelator of all things, eventually points out a very simple fact:  Just as we cannot be in two places at once, neither can we have two lives at once.  It is either the old or the new.

It is true of me, of course.  10 years ago this year, we moved from Old Home to New Home.  The move did change our lives - in many good ways of course, but along with the good came the bad.  Our old lives - old church, old friends, old activities, old contacts - faded into the mirror as we continued to move forward into the new. 

Even now, I continue to change - as I have come to embrace Iai more and more, it means that other things, such as Highland Games, matter less and less.  It is a number of factors of course - I find that throwing in the wet is not nearly as entertaining as it once was and driving more than two hours to and back is more than I want to do - but it is also because, simply, I have X amount of time and energy and must allocate them appropriately.

Some things stick with us of course - in a sense we are nomads of our lives, carrying some things from place to place to place (I fell in love with Japan at age 10; it took me 30 years to find a direct connection and 40 years to have a mechanism - training - to return there annually).  But by choosing a new life, we by default choose to lose on the old.

I wonder: if we really grasped that by choosing a new life we cost the old one, would we always be so eager to do so?  Or would we simply become more melancholy about the change, more thoughtful about the choice - and do it anyway?

God Of The Elements

O God of the elements

O God of the mysteries

O God of the fountains

O King of Kings!

O King of Kings!

- Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

A Few (More) Words from...Miyamoto Musashi

"To Release Four Hands

'To release four hands' is used when you and the enemy are contending with the same spirit, and the issue cannot be decided.  Abandon this spirit and win through an alternative method.

In large-scale strategy, when there is a 'four hands' spirit, do not give up - it is man's existence.  Immediately throw away this spirit and win with a technique the enemy does not expect.

In single combat also, when we think we have fallen into the 'four hands' situation, we must defeat the enemy by changing our mind and applying a suitable technique according to his condition.  You must be able to judge them."


- The Fire Book, A Book of Five Rings

Sit Back And Observe

The Collapse XVI: Refugees

20 July 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

Yesterday we say our first band of refugees.

The first hint I had of it was a Recreational Vehicle coming through town past my home, and then another. And another. And then a truck pulling a trailer – until a whole parade of vehicles drove by my house and on the park down the road, where I do my laundry. As I had planned to do laundry that day anyway, I gathered my things and walked the mile or so to the park.

The park was virtually full – the first time in years I can remember it being so since my youth of coming here. Adults and children milled around the main area of the park, the children running around as if trapped inside all day (which most likely they were) the adults in small knots clustered together.

As for me, I was there to do laundry, so I started up my loads, pulled out my book and commenced reading. I sat quietly until about 15 minutes latter when a number of younger women came in to apparently start doing theirs as well. We nodded pleasantly to each other, then I returned to my book and they to their conversation – which was loud enough to hear over the edge of my cover.

They were, apparently, from somewhere south of where we are had been on the road “for a few days” - not enough regional accent to detect from where. Wherever they were coming from, it sounded as if life had not become too awful yet but they were worried about something that was about to come. They did not sound as if they had a clear plan on where they were going yet - “West” is what I heard, but I did not get a sense of how far “west” really meant.

During the conversation, children flitted in and out of the laundry room, laughing and crying and shouting at the top of their lungs. It has been a rather long time since I have had that level of...”activity” in my life. It was a source of both joy and confusion to me as my life has become so much more quiet now. I can scarcely remember when such loud days were the norm.

I finished and folded my laundry, nodded to the ladies women finishing theirs, and then packed up everything in my basket and headed out. The park was as full and busy as the laundry room had been, with children tearing around the spots and men and women in small clusters, grilling over charcoal or cooking over camp stoves.

They were gone the next morning to points “West”, as the owner told me, almost gleeful at the amount of money he had turned in one day and trying to figure out how to restock before the next wave came through.

It is a concerning thing, Lucilius, these populations on the move. In point of fact there is probably no better thing “west” of here than there is “east” of here, or north or south. I am coming to fear the time of decision has already passed and one will need to make do with where one is and what one has.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

Spring Evening

Translucent moonlight

breaks through holes in the cloud bank:

outlines of shadows.

Of Old Cars and Passing Memories

We are no longer building cars that stand out.

Once upon a time, cars were built that were distinctive and unique.  No-one ever mistook a 1956 Thunderbird or 1966 Mustang or a Datsun 280Z for any other kind of car.  Even today, these cars remain recognizable - and valuable.

However, a great deal of cars are built today will not have the same lasting power.  Most of them merge into one another, a flow of curves and body types to reduce drag, increase gas mileage, and go farther.  And to a great extent, they all look almost exactly the same.

In other words, we have exchanged the unique for the utilitarian.

As I pondered this, I realized that in the age of intellectual achievement, this seems to be true more and more.  Our houses or apartments look them same.  Our appliances all look almost the same, with only features differentiating one from the other.  Any computer looks like any other and smartphones compete only in how big their screen can be.

And more and more, what we produce is ephemeral.  The appliances and cars with planned obsolescence.  The computer programs and TV shows that are replaced in popularity on an almost annual basis.  The things we buy, use, dispose of, and promptly forgot that we owned.

Maybe this is the natural progression of technology, that as we move through what we can do and achiever it becomes more and more amazing, yet more and more passing.  We moved from stone and wood to metal and leather and steel and concrete and computers.  At every step something more amazing, yet each thing seeming to pass more quickly into the ether.  We view ruins that were built 2000 years ago; cities from the gold and silver rushes of 200 years ago weather away and vanish.

As the homogenization of the uniqueness of items continues to dwindle and the inevitable move to own and use less and less continues, we will find ourselves in an age where the original, the lasting, the hand made and hand built and distinctive will find more and more value - not just because it has aesthetic or historical value but because it remains distinctive and memorable in a world which no longer generates its memories in things it built but in something far less lasting - the feelings and memories of an individual, which will never outlive them.  We are exchanging the record for our being in the physical world for a mental record which we can only record in things that, all too often, pass away in the blink of an eye.

Slow Driving, No Media

I am a slow driver.

I drive at or below the speed limit on a daily basis - so much so, The Ravishing Mrs. TB reminds me quite a bit to at least "go the speed limit".  I at least try to get out of the far left lane, but generally - yes, I am that guy.

Why?  Not really sure how it started - that I can recall now, I have never had a speeding ticket.  I think it originated somewhere from my seeming irrational fear of always being pulled over - if I am going the speed limit, there is never any danger of that happening.   I am perfectly happy to let others speed by me on their way to somewhere as I slowly make my way down the Interstate.

It occurred to me yesterday as I drove that this is what giving up current events and media has been like.

If (like me) you are driving at the speed limit, you inevitably find yourself passed by people going quickly (or much more quickly) on their way to somewhere else.  They either whip right by or slowly edge past you, but in the end they leave you behind as they speed over the horizon. 

Oddly enough however, I still end up arriving at the same destination they do, if only a little bit later.

That is what being without the media has been like.  Yes, I eventually hear of the "goings on" out there in the real world (because of course people talk about it) but I end up waking up at the same time as everyone else.  I can perhaps opine on the current event (I am trying not to during Lent, of course!) even as I grasp that I can no more influence or change most of them than I can the weather or the sunset. 

The pace of my life - or at least my stress, I guess, has changed as well.  I am no longer always in an almost hyper-induced sense of waiting for the next thing to occur (I wish I could make this true for work as well!).  I just move forward into my day, knowing that somehow events and commentary are going on all around me and knowing that I will end the day like everyone else around me.

I have to admit this has turned out to be a rather delightful change of pace.

Keep Me

Keep me in good means,

Keep me in good intent.

Keep me in good estate,

Better than I know to ask,

Better that I know to ask.

Shepherd me this day,

Relieve my distress...

Guard for me my speech,

Strengthen for me my love,

Illumine for me the stream.

- Carmina Gadelica (Alexander Carmichael) from Celtic Devotions (Calvin Miller)

A Few Words From..A.W. Tozer

"Religion today is not transforming the people - it is being transformed by the people.  It is not raising the moral level society - it is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender."

A Happy Life