For something different

Post-Painterly Abstraction / Ronald Davis/ Roll Your Own (Zig-Zag)

There is a whole bunch of the world that I can't do a damn thing about.  Come to think of it, that really describes 99 and 44/100ths of my life. I suppose that retirement allows me to better understand that, so I got that going for me.  So I think I am done ranting about the stupidity of all things connected to Pontic-Caspian Steppes.  I will make every possible effort to only mention this clown show in passing.

So I am thinking about what my next writing will be about.  There are a couple of possibilities but all of them come with issues involved.

1.  The energy crisis that is developing and will probably get worse. 
   
2.  The climate crisis that has arrived and it's possible course (remember when Al Gore shit his pants about 400ppm?  Well, that train has left the station).  There is a lot of overlap with the first subject.
3.  The nature of consciousness and memory.  This one is a bitch.  Anyone who takes this on is going to be challenged pretty hard.
   
4.  The current decline of the American Empire.  This one gets involved with all kinds of things.  I'll probably have to hold my nose and refer to our military adventurism.
5.  How to be poor with a modicum of style.  Probably need to address the overall economic outlook as part and parcel of this
   

All of these issues will require some thought.  Anything that I come up with will be mentioned here.

I suppose the most likely first candidate will be the problem of resource depletion in the energy industry.  That is a serious driver.  Granted, it is inexorably intertwined with the climate crisis, but since I view it as a causal factor, I will probably address it first and then riff off what I figure out in that when addressing the second.

I am also changing how I connect to the monstrosity that DarpaNet has morphed into.  I am dumping my always-on cable modem.  For a bit now, I have been concerned at how much time I spend checking the uninterrupted battle of narratives.  The always-on cable modem allows me to far too easily get obsessed/overwhelmed by the amount of crap available out on the wire.

My cell phone is going to be the answer.  I will allot myself 30 minutes a day through an USB to USB-C into the side of my decrepit of piece Dell and use Thunderbird to go out and fetch things from the sites that I have respect for.  Best I can see, that will take around five minutes at one time.  It will grab my mail and the things that I want to read.  I am guessing fifteen minutes total connect time.  I figure that I will do the first check in the morning with coffee, then after I spend the day addressing things and getting the writing for the day complete, I will log in again to upload responses and the day's post (if one is available).

But I have the modem until the first of June, so I have some time to change my ways and work out the details. 

We'll see.