I have made the transition to living "off the grid". We have reduced our personal holdings to one modest sailboat and the things that will fit inside her hull. (We were unsuccessful in selling the house so it is rented at basically a "break even" price. When the current lease runs out we will try to sell it again.) With expenses reduced there is no need for to work for anyone else in any form; not as independent contractors, not as business owners, not as employees nor as consultants. We don't need "part time" or seasonal work. A modest amount of savings coupled with the money we have invested in Social Security should see us through. (Sorry T-party / Republicans, that is not an "entitlement" and I am not a "taker." Should you succeed in privatizing it and taking it away from me then you will be a thief. Should you do such a thing it is my hope the nation will rise up, burn your house down, and drive you into the wilderness.)
There is a transition period, moving from land to water. The boat is on the hard while we do final preparations for putting it in big, blue water. Our days are filled with relentless work; 8, 10, sometimes 12 hours at a time. The work is physical and demanding; sanding the hull, breaking down the rigging, pulling the propeller for overhaul, installing a wind vane, endlessly climbing the 12 foot ladder needed to get aboard - there is nothing easy about it. But it is completely different from working for a living. Everything we do is directly tied to how we live. This transition is a time for toughening up a body whose only exercise for the last couple of decades was found at the gym, parsed out a couple of hours a day a few times a week. Now activity is day long and already, just a couple of weeks into it, my body is adjusting. It was, however, an adjustment I had not anticipated.
In a like minor my heart and mind have to adjust as well; an adjustment also not anticipated. One that came as a complete surprise was a literal change in mind set. In these last few weeks something akin to a meme has become a mental habit. Calm, clear, content, compassionate, curious ... at any given moment I seek to have some combination of these as the ground state of my experience. When it isn't so, when some task at hand is proving utterly frustrating, when the day's efforts have left cramping muscles or a headache in their wake, or some bit of news has sparked an appropriate outrage, just repeating the five words helps restore the balance. The task will still be at hand, the muscles still ache, the anger still linger - but a different view will prevail. The task will get done, the ache is both honestly earned and will eventually fade, and the anger?
Well, anger is often the only response to injustice and evil. But being calm does not mean being passive. Clear thoughts are essential for getting from one place to another, for confronting an evil and finding a cure. Muddied thinking leads to dead ends and bad decisions and is often the cause of evil in the first place. It is possible to be utterly content with one's small part in engineering fundamental and drastic changes. Compassion is always good and particularly necessary when confronting an enemy. Without it one becomes what one opposes. And it is only the curious who make anything happen at all.
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