I'm feeling it today. The nausea that comes with observing rampant consumerism. Even worse, feeling it all too present in myself. I saw an Atlantic article this morning titled "Will Americans Ever Get Sick of Cheap Stuff? It discussed the online Chinese sellers who are undercutting Amazon and others with direct from China shipping. Separately, Cory Doctorow wrote today about how Google search was intentionally made less effective in order to require more searches that would deliver more advertising. 

At our house we are, generally speaking, minimalists. We are not big shoppers, and we've tried to move away from using Amazon. This month, I caved to a 30-day free Prime offer to get a few things. Some were "needs", but I we kind of rationalized them all as needs and as replacements for other things. This is the way of our capitalist society. 

Worse, is when I find myself looking online at new cars or new cameras or new watches. None of these are needs. They are wants and desires. But, I want to resist. The planet is burning and the never ending buying of cheap shit has to end. I am not optimistic. 

I have three good habits that I wish to restart in May. I go in streaks of doing these activities:

1. Weights at the gym, along with some warm-up cardio
2. Learning guitar, and enjoying what I do know how to play
3. Learning and/or relearning Spanish

I have done the second and third items today, and will try to hit all three of them tomorrow. I won't be slave to "streaks" and demand them of myself every day (or even every other where weights are concerned). It is simply necessary to get some consistency going, and to not drop any of them for weeks at a time. "Things" come up and I am all too ready to lose the thread when distracted by events. Here is to coming back, again and again. 

Some of these I adopted early on, while others were learned over 60+ years.

• Protect your integrity and exercise honesty
• Save money for retirement and live below your means
• Buy less stuff and live lightly on the Earth 
• Listen more than you talk
• People tell you who they are; believe them
• You can only change yourself
• Examine your thoughts and critically question yourself
• Be curious
• Feel free to begin and end hobbies or interests
• Love yourself and others

We went to a Silent Reading Party at a historic hotel in Seattle. Admission is paid and there is a brunch menu, full bar, and live piano music. Everyone brings books and reads for two hours. We scored a love seat rather than a table. It was an incredibly nice indulgence.

She seemed to find her life fascinating. She sat in the waiting room, calling and telling whoever would listen the same few details of her mundane day. Over and over, again. Sometimes, I wish cell phones still charged by the minute. 

I simply wish to express my gratitude to Vincent, the terrific creator of Scribbles. I love his style, both in design and in his transparency of being a good human. 

This is not something I generally do, but here are examples

I have concluded one of those antsy phases of trying things, and changing things. I obtained my first ever domain, and played with all the settings. I tried three blog options - Scribbles, Micro.blog and Weblog.lol. 

Scribbles is now the only blog for me. Along with dropping Micro.blog, I dropped Drafts as I don’t need to send words that many places. 

I am using Day One for certain kinds of notes, and Simplenote for plain text, with Notes.app for some reference notes and things not in plain text. It all makes sense and it is working. I need not explore anything further for now. 

The mere perception of theoretical accuracy means I can never sell this watch. The needle tip hands and minute track are just cool. 📷

I'm feeling very grateful this morning for a cozy house, and a cozy room of my own. I've toyed with calling my room a "den" or a "study", but last night I was watching a British show where offices were referred to as "my room" and I like it. It connects with childhood.

Let's consider the US standard of living, the world standard of living, and the capacities of the planet. I don't believe we can sustain the present US standard of living and tech our way out of a climate crisis with EVs (bad idea) and the like and go on our merry way. After the 2008 recession, investment managers were always pitching that investment returns could be found in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) because these economies all were growing and trying to achieve the US standard of living. Well, the US has less than 10% of the world population, yet has long used well more than 50% of the worlds resources. This is all unsustainable on a planet wide basis. So, individual choices to live in a smaller footprint seems to me to be something everyone needs to get used to accepting for the future. 

I have maintained book lists of my reading since 1995, and only recently came across the earliest file. I have now put together a master list that totals 1,346 books from 1995 to 2023. It is amazing to see how long ago I read certain books. Quite a head trip!

I took a course in Management Accounting (cost accounting) in my sophomore year of college in the late 1970s. Our professor pointed out very clearly the missing piece of accounting - the "free" resources we take from the earth, and the destruction we leave behind. We had a book for that class of essays on all the issues of this incomplete way of addressing the costs of living, and of our economic system. So, not only were we aware of environmental issues - at least after Earth Day 1970 - but also a major fallacy built into our economic system that supported using up the planet. This was nearly 50 years ago. Imagine if things had gone a different direction. The Financial Accounting Standards Board has addressed things like interest rate swaps and collateralized mortgage obligations, but has never addressed accounting for the full costs of human life on earth. 

Just had an amazing delivery service of some new chairs. They provided a three hour window, and a live tracking map. The ETA got earlier and earlier, and they beat the early end of the time window by 65 minutes. This never happens! 

This morning, I saw someone say what we’re doing to combat climate change is like trying to cure cancer with homeopathy. That is a statement both wise and sad.