time travellers

TIME TRAVELLER


I know some of you are absolutely no fun. Take yourself way too seriously. When someone farts, rather than laughing you get all bent out of shape, wrinkle your nose and say something vaguely reminiscent of a stuffed shirt at a community college with pretensions. “I say old son, rather juvenile, what?” One almost expects to see you drag out a pipe and begin orally fixating on it. Hey, lighten up, Francis. I can tell you, having it on pretty good authority, that you simply don’t get extra brownie point for having a broomstick stuck up your ass. Baby Jesus would rather have a bunch of folks around with a song on their lips and a smile in their hearts instead of a bunch of weirdo’s moaning and proving their devotion by whipping themselves. Hey, that crap spreads disease, dude. So, if you are one of those self righteous twats, don’t read this article. In fact, just go away. I don’t know if you are worthy of my utterances. But buy through one of my Amazon links first, would ya? Okay, have you ever had those lazy afternoon times, with or without a refreshing adult beverage, you start feeling all depressed that your wife is a retched hag, the kids are undisciplined ungrateful bed soilers, the dog has the brains of an amoebae who keeps getting “fetch the paper” confused with “wipe your ass on our new rug, boy” and the cat thinks the bleeding weeping flesh on your back is a landing pad from the bookshelf? The boss thinks you’re hot but you’ve seen the leather bondage gear in her desk drawer. You owe 23 years on the mortgage to a house guaranteed to not fall apart for another two and a half, the car just had a computer malfunction that included a plea to HAL for assistance, and you are sure that your forthcoming second job might include weekends in an orange jumpsuit picking up highway litter to pay off your credit card debtors. You start to daydream that if you could just time travel back through time and change one of two things, all would be much better in your life. You start playing the “what if” game. This is healthy and reasonable, not delusional and wasteful, if you put this mental energy to good use.

*

Does this article have much to do with survivalism? Sorta. Stick around, I might surprise you. I used to play this game quite a bit. As you might imagine, my life sucked. I thought I had found my “soul mate” who turned out to be a “soul sucker” from the eighth level of Hell. She had played me like a cheap kazoo and I was at the bottom. No kids, no money, no love life. Living on, literally, $200 a month and working a midnight shift. It took some time to work out from under all that, I had a lot of starts and stops, one step back for every two forward, but eventually, I got my life back. And I didn’t wait around for a mid-life crisis. I was bound and determined that I’d wasted enough of my life on crap and I was going to life my life my way. I could give two craps about extra money, I wanted to make the rest of my time I hadn’t pissed away be worth it. To live my goals and desires. You can’t take money with you, and you certainly don’t lay on your deathbed looking back at how every dollar was spent. You can however achieve your dream and look back fondly on that. If I die tomorrow I’ll really be pissed that wife #2 didn’t get there first, but at least I’ll have achieved what I wanted which is to be heard. To create and make a difference. I’m sure some of you wish I’d shut the hell up about this weepy touchy feely crap, stop wasting your time on drivel, and write a continuous stream of fat post-apocalypse books to entertain you. But I know others had heeded at least some of my advice and been better off for it. I’m not claiming anything other than self-satisfaction from writing, but it still is nice to know I’ve perhaps made some positive achievement while doing it. But this isn’t always just about me. What about you? Are you living the life you want?

*

You can’t go back and undo a lot of things, but you can, if you want, change as much as possible with hard work and sacrifice. Let’s say that despite the preps you make today, you don’t survive the collapse. It is good odds you might not. Wouldn’t you rather make the sacrificing needed now to live what time you have left the way you want to? This isn’t just about self-gratification. Its about doing something positive. I’m not discounting commitment and responsibilities. I’m saying you can reshuffle priorities and live your dream. You don’t have to ditch the kids and wife to go paint sunsets in Paris. You can work less at a job that only benefits others and go to the park at lunch to draw, perhaps after the workday is done. Take longer weekend trips to go camping so you can enjoy nature rather than just taxiing the kids around to appointments. Whatever. It’s not about irresponsibility or needing more money. Just about rethinking what is important. But you can’t have it perfect, just improved. I’d rather be in a mild climate on a homestead with a spouse and a bunch of kids while writing. But I’ve made too many bad choices so I live in an Artic craphole in a tin box alone, waiting for my once a month phone call from my children. But my time is spent how I want it, not how others do. Well, my free time anyway. But I’m sure you get the point. Always wanted to live the self-sufficient life but are kept in urban bondage? You still can, it just won’t be easy. All it takes is the unwavering commitment to achieve your goal. You might need to downsize the dream, but you can still have it. Every problem in life has a very simple solution. The only problem is, most of the time we don’t like the solution any better than the problem. So we stay with the devil we know. If you can overcome that reluctance, you’ve got this half whipped ( the other half is the hard work ). It isn’t about money but discipline. Sometimes I’d like nothing better than to haul the trailer back into town, hook up to the grid for electric heat, throw away the computer and get five hundred channels of cable TV so I can veg my brain back into permanent sleep. Instead, I do everything the hard way. Accomplishment isn’t free. But it sure makes that death bed more comfortable.

END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
My e-mail is jimd303@netzero.com
*
Anyone can submit a guest article. No minimum word length, no writing skill necessary ( just get the idea across ). You retain copyright ( this must be your original writing ) and I’ll just use the once. I’ve yet to turn down an article, just don’t use the N Bomb or libel another that can sue me. Send by e-mail ( please, label as “guest article” so I can find it easily later ). Payment will be your removal from my enemies list.
*
By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there.
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.