Survival

When everyone thinks of survival what goes through their mind? You're probably thinking of some stark situation like being lost in the desert or something right? We're going to talk a different type of survival, We're going to talk life in general. See my family's situation is different than most. Most people have work to go to, bills that outnumber the fingers on one hand, and multiple responsibilities to deal with on a daily basis. Their kids go to public school, and they have a schedule to keep. Such is not our life, and it's a life many want but few actually understand. See the life most people have is actually survival, in one form or another.

I will explain it in a few ways. First, we had human trading and slavery right? You had to work to survive, in a lot of different ways. You worked or you didn't eat, or would be killed or punished in some way. In slavery, you worked to bring a product of some kind, be it on a plantation, so the product could be traded, or sold. Many different nationalities were sold into slavery and that's the way it was back in the day. So in trade for your services you were provided food, and shelter, and that's pretty much it. Back then, that was all you needed to survive, and life was basic. That's our whole history in a nutshell, produce, and survive...

Fast forward to 2022... Most people go to work every week right? The ones that don't are either homeless, or dead. Where is our economy at right now? How are the prices of homes, of food, of basic necessities? See You go to work now, and in turn you are paid for your production in monetary notes. Those monetary notes are then traded by you for food, and shelter, and if you noticed it is currently providing less and less of those things. Now that you've read this far, re-read the previous paragraph and tell me what you have learned this far.

This is how the Financial "clock" is zeroed out. When a company gets too close to bankruptcy by selling their product at sale prices, they have to make up the difference somehow, to keep from over drafting right? So we have two options here. Either raise the prices to piss off the consumer, (which is literally how most companies stay afloat) or we can take all the employees that we pay for their work, (in the form of gold) and we can start paying them with silver, and just coat it with gold colored paint. It's getting harder for the employer to stay afloat, so the employer is passing that hardship down to the customer, which makes it harder for the customer to survive because their money covers less of what they need. In turn the customer goes to work more to provide the basics at home. (Master:work harder or you're sleeping outside= slave works harder) Here-in lies the problem, and private sale ads prove this point. "Don't low-ball me, I know what I have." Unfortunately you don't actually know what you have, because tomorrow, the "hand that's holding all the cards" can say that what you have is worth nothing, then what you have is a lawn ornament because no one wants to buy something that is worth nothing. Also that hand is saying that what you do have is worth less and less everyday, and that is apparent by the fact that the same 8 hour work day doesn't cover as much food, electricity, fuel, or toilet paper as it used to.

So, back to the survival subject, you work to provide food, shelter, light and heat at home yes? That is a common situation for many, but many don't see the whole picture. You see the homeless right? They may be dirty, they may stink, they may beg for help, but they aren't below you. Why is that? Oh you're gonna love this, believe me... The homeless my go without a meal, a shower, a shelter, or a job, but there's something you don't see. The homeless don't go to work for money that is worth less and less everyday, and because of that, they aren't paying to heat shower water, or the lights to see in their house, or apartment that they don't actually own. They don't work to pay others in servitude like most do. They survive purely out of necessity, and from the kindness of friends and strangers that are working to survive. In a lot of cases, they are living the old ways, and people look down on them, because society tells them to... You know, the same society that tells you to work for a living so you can give 20% of it to people that produce nothing but debt and spending bills , yeah those people... for money we don't have... Like a credit card... You are paying someone interest to give you money they don't have, which is why they end up with more money than you do in the end. Tell me if that sounds familiar anywhere else in this story full of gold paint.... So, who is smarter in the comparison between a Masters Degree engineer, and a homeless person? If you answered, "the masters degree", then $100 is still worth $100....

So I stated that Our situation is different than most, and I will explain what I mean. We live lost in the Rocky Mountains. Most people say, "COOL! I want to live that way!" No... Shut up... You have no idea what that even means... We have land we live on, no power bill, no water bill, no gas bill, but we have two other bills. We have a mix of solar, and generator for the electricity we need. Every body says, " That's Aweso-" No.... Shut up... We have fuel that we buy to run the generator on bad weather days. Most people say, " So use your generator to charge your batteries too." No... Shut up.... A generator is the literal least efficient way to charge batteries. Our generator puts out 4000 watts, my house uses 700 watts with everything on at the same time.... By the way, the charging output of a generator to batteries is about the same output as a Harbor freight 15 watt solar panel, which I don't think they even sell anymore. so a $40 solar panel vs. a $600 generator, hmm... Oh, and where do you think that extra 3,300 watts of electricity goes? Nowhere, it just sits there, wasting gasoline, because it uses the same amount of fuel whether you use full power or not... Enjoy that tasty morsel of information, and do with it what you will.

Our second bill is satellite internet which is how I'm able to write here, that is $110 per month, guess what, I run out of data within two weeks of paying my bill. 'But hey, there's a nerd out there that came up with awesome internet!" Yes, Yes there is..." Do you have $600 ready to pull out your butt, because I don't. So let me explain the other facts of life. There is no phone service within 30 miles of my house, there are no gas stations, street lights, traffic congestion, anything... You know what else isn't out here? society... Now, here is where it gets fun. there is not a single job between me and civilization, that would pay for my fuel to get back and fourth to work. I only have two bills, however those get to wait for the monthly trips into town. Which means what? If you used all your fuel on the last bad weather day, you get a light to make dinner by and that's it... So, no internet, no movies, no nothing but light until your batteries are charged enough to run anything else... What else does that mean? That means if you open and close your chest freezer 10 times in one day, your food is going to go bad before you have enough charge to turn the freezer back on....

My kids are home schooled, so we have literally no schedule. They learn as we teach, and they learn more hands on than most. Which means, if I want to wake my kids up at 1 am and teach them math through smoothie ratios, I'm gonna damn well do it! It also means that we actually have a relationship with our kids, because instead of turning on the TV and telling them to leave us alone, "because were tired", we try to do a lot of things together. That comes with many different challenges in itself. Have you ever felt like you were literally babysitting your own kids? No... shut up... Not many even know what that means... We give more answers and explanations than most of the world so we are interrogated about everything, including the dumb stuff, even the stuff, that they could figure out on their own, if they gave it more than .3 seconds of thought. We live in a box that is smaller than most people's living room, so our kids are always in our faces... We don't have a room we can go to and lock the door, and we rarely have the fuel to run a movie for them, and step outside for a few...

These are the benefits of the life style we have. Literally everything we have is paid for, including the land we live on. So if the world crashes and burns, it won't effect us much at all. We have no debt, which means all money we have goes to what we decide to spend it on, other than relatively cheap, annual taxes. How did we get here? In the last four years, we worked in a different state, that we had no intentions of staying in for more than a few days to pick up a trailer. We both got two jobs, and worked through everyone else quitting over a health scare.... We didn't take out a PPP Loan or credit for anything. We worked, and continued working until we could make it back home with the property paid off. Guess what, everything we left with, including the trailer we left for, is still in the other state. so we came back with less than we left with.... Explain that, and while your at it, describe what it feels like to everyone else...

So now we're back, with no debt, and the life we worked for. Here's what comes with that. We get to sit back and see the way the world is going, and how far down the drain everything really is. It only effects our fuel costs but not much else. We get to see everyone else busy at work, going after the life they want, but not going anywhere, because there's always a new car, a new phone, a new flavor of coffee to spend money on... We don't get to visit friends because, life in the mountains never meshes with society's schedule. We are far from the crap of the world, but farther than family is willing to drive to visit. We get to watch the crap spewed by professionals, and the media, and are the first to have time to debunk it all, but no one else has the time to hear it. We get to see everyone spending loads of money, and going on vacations, yet in the seven years we have been up here we were never able to have a honey moon, a single vacation, or a break from what we see. No one has ever offered to even watch our children so we could go on a date. Leaving your children at home alone for any length of time is never feasible, because life on the mountain can change in an instant, and 30 miles isn't close enough to help my children in an emergency. Being here, you want to be able to help the ones you care about, but they are too busy working for the gold painted copper penny, thinking it's the American dream... No matter what you explain, no matter what you tell people is about to happen... No matter how many times you're right, no one will take you seriously, because society says, its the American dream...

What do you get? Tossed aside, forgotten, mocked, treated like an inconvenience, heathens... Funny thing... I'm the youngest in my family of 50 adults alive but, I'm also the only on living on a property completely paid for, and debt free... I'm also the outcast, the one, no one wants to help when it's truly needed. I'm the homeless, in a room full of Masters Degrees... So ladies and gentlemen, stay asleep in society as long as you can. It's way worse for your sanity, and even for your soul.... However, it's lonely out here, outside the pool of shit, that is society... Don't say you want to live like this, unless you can grow and shoot your own food, stop caring about the general public, and adjust to not needing what society has to offer. If you can't learn to do that, you will be closer to suicide than a skydiver without a parachute....