Grex.org user papa make a good point about the ephemeral
nature of thought, and the difficulty of keeping track
of old gopher content. Certainly, keeping track can be a
challenge, especially if you're considering the entirety of
the gophersphere. If the target is smaller, it becomes a
bit easier; for me, there are a few phlogs that I follow
more particularly, so it's not too hard to dig up the past,
assuming it hasn't been deleted...

One of the subjects that I really want to comment on, that
was the topic of discussion across a few gopher phlogs in
the past few months, is self sufficiency. I give the topic
that general name, but it might come under different
titles as well; sustainability, simplification, simple
living, minimalism, asceticism, etc. Per slugmax[2], the
conversation was started recently on gopher by user jynx[3].
Several other phlogs followed suit, but with those two
references, I think the reader can find their way.

Without responding to everything that is already out there,
I would like to simply share a few thoughts on the subject
as it has applied to me in my own life. For many years I
have had an interest in self-sufficient living. For as long
as I can remember, actually. As a kid, I loved Walden,
My Side of the Mountain, Hatchet, and other such stories
of life in the wild. The idea of making it on my own, with
only nature to provide, has always fascinated me.

In my adult life, that fascination transformed into a sort
of obsession with sustainability, off-grid living, micro-
farming, and various little activities of all kinds. But
with adult relationships, my interests have had to be
tempered; primarily, I have approached all of them as a
hobby more than a lifestyle.

Below are a few random things that I have done in my
hobbyist's attempt to satisfy a part of me that goes as
far back as my memory. I don't claim that these activities
all really fit into the categories mentioned above, but
they are things I've done personally to try to reconcile
my inner world with my outer world. Skip the list to get on
with my musing if you like, it only serves to illustrate.
In no particular order:

- Built several solar ovens and cooked with them in Oregon
- Purchased a nicer solar oven and cooked with it on a
 regular basis while living in Phoenix, AZ.
- Purchased a small solar setup with battery storage,
 learned to create a workflow using it and a low-power
 computer setup.
- Raised bed, low-water, high-yield mittleider garden in
 Phoenix, AZ, year-round growing
- Similar garden setup in Lakeside, AZ, but short growing
 season.
- Create and store emergency/bugout kits for the family,
 practice using them overnight.
- Minimized bills, moved twice to half my mortage each
 time. (a little tough to get buy-in from the family
 on that, but did manage)
- Organized and went on a few survival campouts with
 friends, with varying amounts of "stuff" allowed.
- Built and used an unlicensed motorized bike to get
 around while living in Phoenix, AZ (legal there.)
- Rebuilt and used a 50cc moped to travel across Portland,
 to work (registration required, but no special license.
 in the winter, turned out to be far too cold to do
 regularly.)
- Learned to do almost all of my own automotive and home
 repairs.
- Put together my own version of Rachel Offline, a self-
 hosted "internet" of content, for offline use.
- Store and used several months of durable foods, grains
 and the like.
- Learned to stone-grind wheat, bake bread (with a Retsel
 grain mill, hand crank attachment, not a hard thing.)
- Learned to muzzle-load my 12g, with an adapter from
 Short Lane. I keep their other adapters around for
 emergency prep as well.
- Got my ham radio license, participated in EMCOMM groups
 in Phoenix while living there.
- Showered with solar-warmed water, 1gal shower, during
 a week in which I attempted to see how little water
 I could personally use and still stay clean and
 hydrated (phx again, easy to heat water outside there.)
- Learned to use a variety of basic herbs, prepare
 tinctures, etc, to self-treat basic ailments. Sold
 herbs, mixtures, and tinctures at farmers market one
 summer.

I can't think of any others at the moment, but the list is
perhaps illustrative enough already. What it shows I think,
is a person struggling to come out of me. From what I can
tell, that person has always been inside me, from as early
as I can remember, but has never really been welcome in the
outside world.

I feel that our world today values the work/consume
model above all else. Capitalism values the consumer,
socialsim values the worker, but both expect the
individual to contribute to the whole in a controlled
manner, and both are cursed with the clingers-on who
seek money and/or power, who seem to be managing the
consumers/workers. That may seem like a digression, but
when I consider which elements of the external world
seek to quell the self-sufficient part of me, those two
systems are what come to mind.

Currently, I am attempting to discover that part of me
that I've always felt like I've had to supress in order
to function in the world, and more importantly, to
maintain harmony in my family. I've found that my family
is far more understading of me than I originally thought,
and that they in fact share many of my own ideals.

I could write another entire post about my current plans,
but I guess I'll leave that for a future date. This year
(2017) was supposed to be the year for things to really
get off the ground, but it turned out differently. My
father passed away, and we had some other extended family
problems. Since I believe in God, I have chosen to see
His hand in a lot of what has happened, with the hope that
my own "great plans" have been thwarted to make room for
better plans. With some of the pain of this year has come
some learning, and that is an aspect of self-sufficiency
that truly appeals to me.

And yet my heart really hasn't changed. I still intend to
pursue my plans, even though they're hard. I can't go as
crazy as I'd like- the people around me keep me grounded-
but I do want to be a little more adventurous than I have
been so far. I hope to have more time to read more of what
is out there, especially on gopher and especially with a
focus on the philosophy of it all. And then, I hope to be
able to contribute more.

[1] gopher://grex.org:70/0/%7epapa/pgphlog/ada-Catching_Up_on_Phlogs_Ha
[2] gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/slugmax/phlog/cabin
[3] gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jynx//cgi-bin/slerm.cgi?20171008.post