#Self-reliance

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[noosphe-re]

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, Essays: First Series, 1841

[themotherofrevelation]

Self-reliance is the ultimate bondage; self-reliance opposes the natural design of life. Hyper-independence is a trauma response. Rely/lean on Goddess; Goddess’s way is whole communion.

[apesoformythoughts]

‘“Individualism” claims G.K. Chesterton, “kills individuality.” While perhaps formulating a subjectivist paradise devoid of “pure” objective rationality, Nietzsche opened the door to a form of individualism that led to a new extreme of impotence and feebleness that the Enlightenment might never have reached. Peterson’s dour temperament, juxtaposed with the well-adjusted temperaments of the jovial Chesterton and the vivacious [Slavoj] Zizek . . . testifies to the death of individuality under the tyranny of individualism.

To base one’s moral compass on lived relationships with real people outside of one’s head, rather than on abstractions of their selfhood or of “humanity” broadly speaking, seems to be both a necessary and perplexing conundrum. The self, for Chesterton, was perpetually caught in a tension whose dynamic was relational. Existence and freedom are not to be harnessed and regulated, nor outsourced and relieved of responsibility. They are gifts…and at times curses, but always given, implying a relationship between a gift-giver and the self as receiver. “Most modern freedom is at root fear,” writes Chesterton, “It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.” Responsibility for Chesterton is not so much a matter of lifting oneself up by one’s bootstraps, but a response to the One who gives one his existence. Thus, we are faced with Chesterton’s ability to hold together the paradox of the power of free will, but also its fragility and limitations.’

— Stephen G. Adubato: “Beyond the Cult of Self-Reliant Bootstrapping”

[jennifersblog-en]

Would you rather call it cottagecore or self-sufficiency? A short essay on rural life and self-reliance.

Good afternoon!

I originally intended to write about cottagecore, which is pretty much what surrounds me in this rural region. However, I have a love-hate relationship toward these social media aesthetics, which are first and foremost photography aesthetics and themes with ugly names. This said, in a context of domestic abuse, I mostly count on myself for many of my needs. It is true that self-sufficiency and food self-relience tend toward the Cottagecore sub-culture, and it is tempting to go in that direction, but it would be first and foremost lying to myself, and then to others. Therefore, I prefer to face my own reality by talking about my life journey, rather than to sweeten my speech.

I prefer to be clear, in a situation of abuse, when somebody else is controlling the budget and poverty is a reality, complete financial and material autonomy is more than a fantasy, it's a need.

Facing reality: you don't need to aim for complete self-sufficiency 

In fact, to be honest, you'll never make your own medications. What is complete self-sufficiency? A myth.

This said, my aim is to improve my self-reliance, which relies on a few hobbies, such as gardening, and I invite you to do the same.

Although my production of food is far from being all-year-round, or even enough for canning and preserving, my first attempt has provided me with fresh fruits and vegetables almost every day of Summer. In terms of fruits, I have only grown strawberries and raspberries, as well as the old apple tree planted decades ago by the late owners. I have grown a wider array of vegetables, such as tomatoes, peas, snow peas, and yellow and green beans. A little bit of my protein intake came from lima and borlotti beans, and I had five fresh herbs to choose from. My biggest failures have been my onions, garlic bulbs and radishes; they were disappointingly lost to rot and drought before harvest.

Overall, this was not bigger than a balcony garden, which proves that you don't need a lot of space to feed yourself if you aim for a percentage of your plate, rather than the usual message of the internet, which is complete self-sufficiency.

Growing food can be the cure to food trauma and insecurity

If, like me, you've been traumatized by food shortages and a lack of financial freedom, growing your own food can be the necessary cure, and at relatively small costs.

At the very least, you'll control some of the food you'll have later in the season. If you're lucky, you can make preserves, or meal-prep and freeze.

Baking and bread-making

This is something I was already doing, and there is something special about having a dessert or a slice of fresh bread, still warm from the oven.

All winter long, I try to do something inspired by the Swedish fika concept, and use these months to plan ahead for Spring.

Needle arts are far from dead

From cosplay to insta-worthy embroidery, the needle arts are far from dead, despise their temporary rejection at home, as shopping malls and hypermarkets became my own parents' stress-relief and boredom-killing hobby. From a personal point-of-view, their consumption habits were far from my values, and I have come back to sewing and knitting to supply a percentage of my wardrobe. I've also tried to make very simple jewelry.

The initial cost is not always cheaper to make your own, because you will possibly choose a thicker, high-quality fabric, that will hopefully last longer, which is where you can really save. 

I often like to remind myself that this is not child labour, but my own labour; and it makes a world of a difference from a moral standpoint.

♫ These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do ♬

When I have decided to get back in shape, I didn't have the financial means to pay a subscription at the gym. However, did you notice the free sports you can start doing today? 

I have started walking almost every sunny day, and it has greatly improved my cardio-vascular health, as I was enjoying the scenery and leaving my problems at home, behind a closed door.

When bad weather forces you to stay inside, there are still many Youtube channels to watch, and I have even found a few workout television shows on major channels. They tend to be at 6am, though, and they have to be recorded to watch them as a hobby, instead of a morning chore.

Which comes to a conclusion: dis I really ever intend to write about the Cottagecore movement and its photography aesthetic, or simply about real life and self-care? I'd say the latter, for this is what feels better, and always will.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

"What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'Self-Reliance'

[The Makers Rage Podcast]

[the-healing-mindset]

“I only rely on me”

It's easy to develop this mindset. We get caught up in the thought pattern that no one is out there who can help us. That we can depend on no one because we must be strong and prove that we’re capable. In our past, we may not have been able to depend on anyone else for any reason whatsoever. Those around us back then may have been harmful or hurtful to us. That doesn’t mean that we have to continue on all alone though.

There are people out there for you to trust, however. Yes, there are some things that you will absolutely have to take care of on your own. But not everything. If you keep trying the same thing over and over again, yet keep getting the same result, then it may be time to get the opinion or the assistance of someone else. You’re not weak for that.

[unwelcome-ozian]

[hspcoaching]

[the-ephemeral-ethereal]

Real knowledge arises through confrontation with real things.

from Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford 

[leam1983]

On Autonomy in the IT Industry

What's kinda frustrating for a disabled hardware geek like me is that a lot of my peers don't really see how common maintenance tasks are day-long planning and execution rigamaroles for me. Those tiny M.2 screws? They're a bitch to wrangle if your hind brain is so convinced you'll drop it in the frame that your limbs are overtaken by tremors so strong that the entire case shakes.

At the Old Place, my former boss used to give me an amused look. "Relax, Grem! It's just a single screw; you can't mess this up!" she'd say.

The fact is, I could - and I knew it. I've scratched material off of PCBs, shorted boards, lost screws, broke posts and scrapped hardware all because my motor controls never got the message that I know how to handle a PC case in multiple formats. The old boss never understood why I needed to force myself into borderline monastic levels of focus to switch M.2 drives out of a system, or why I demanded near-absolute quiet when my colleagues could shoot the shit while handling a laptop's stumpy little external screws.

Walt and Sarah, however, understand this all too well. I updated my Steam Deck's SSD last night, and both of them treated this like I were a heart surgeon performing a triple bypass. Others might've laughed, but I was actually given the space I needed, for a change. The same went for the Palpatine server - the more crucial operations always came with a ramping-down of Walt's phone calls.

What they also understand is that pushing past my disability and succeeding feels insanely good. I walked out of mine and Walt's room with a big-ass grin and a functional 1 TB Steam Deck in hand with no stripped screws or broken screw posts, and I was proud of myself. Sarah gave me a wolf whistle and Walt added a golf clap in equal parts supportive and teasing measures.

I doubt many able-bodied techs get that feeling; this "I did something! Me, on my own, without ever asking for help! Yes!" type of euphoria that I've only ever seen out of cripples like me when we both manage to pull ourselves by our bootstraps and materially succeed in what we'd envisioned. Able-bodied people tend to downplay most of what they do, but even switching RAM sticks without missing the slots at least four or five times still feels like a big thing for me - and I've been building PCs for about twenty years, now. Plus, the older I get, the more demanding some operations become. It makes successes all the more precious - and increasingly less banal.

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

Master Detachment. What stays, stays & what goes, goes..

[wisdom-and-such]

“Speak your latent conviction and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost,--and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgement.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

[teanicolae]

reflections written in the park i walked every day in during the most tumultuous years of my teens. as the trees have changed, so have i, yet as the trees have remained the same, so have i. leaving home with renewed faith in the only one who can deliver me: myself. 

i was never a loyalist to my homeland,

but when i saw the trees

that had towered over my head 

in my teenage years,

i graced the earth with my knees 

and raged.

to the girl 

sitting by the lake 

counting good omens on stones 

and stringing her worth on fair words:

the only one 

who can deliver you 

from your despondency 

is yourself.

photos: cișmigiu bloom, bucharest.

[apesoformythoughts]

‘But the [Jordan] Peterson crying videos mostly make me sad for him because of how seriously he takes himself, and how rarely, one finds the man laughing. These videos also make me think of something even sadder than—as Slavoj Zizek once remarked—how difficult it is to “elicit from [Peterson] a joke”: the life and death of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Self-reliant bootstrapping rhetoric draws heavily on the Nietzschean exaltation of the Ubermensch and the will to power. Yet ironically, Nietzsche’s death was sadly unNietzschean. Lonely, physically ailing, driven to madness, and plagued by an “urge for the truth” (which he “so detested”), he found himself calling into question the worldview he constructed upon the rejection of all external authorities.’

— Stephen G. Adubato: “Beyond the Cult of Self-Reliant Bootstrapping”

[d-michl-lowe]

Being an Author with ADD

As a writer, I am often split in my attention. While I might be talking to someone or doing a task, my brain is always going over some aspect of my book. Maybe I am considering some part of the world of the book, here recently that’s been the magic system and religions of the people there. How do those things work? Why are they the way they are? Who are the major characters which will interact…