2024-01-06
With the new year here and I have decided to do a few new years resolutions.
I have gotten into this habit of waking up, then turning on my computer, getting my morning coffee then spending 1.5-3 hours(longer on the weekend) on the internet mostly watching pointless YouTube videos, before I either do chores around the house or out to run errands then to work. I'm not nearly as bad is most people, IE I don't spend countless hours mindlessly scrolling through social media on my phone all day, however I feel I still spend to much time consuming junk content. So in the new year I'm going to start limiting the time I spend on the internet to 30-45 minutes day(even on the weekends), unless I'm working on\researching a specific project which I'm going to schedule time for. 30-45 minutes should be enough time for me to do the basics, check my email, go through my RSS feed , check forums I frequent and pop onto IRC to say hello. I'll be replacing internet time with reading books, going outside more and working on non-computer projects.
I will do it tomorrow, I'll do it next weekend then I just forget about it. I have this really bad habit of procrastinated and starting on projects, working on them for a few weeks then start procrastinating, then giving up on them completely. For example I was studying Slovak and Old Norse daily at one point, then it went to every other day, then once a week, then I stopped all together, and this is not the first time I have done this either, I've done it with countless other projects.
Why I keep doing this? I do it because I feel mentally exhausted all the time and because I feel mentally exhausted all I want to do it consume junk content online. So to get over this I'm going to spend less time on the internet(resolution 1#) which should free up more time for me, and second start writing down what I'm going to do daily during the week. And third I'm going to stop being spiritually lazy which does help a lot with the mental exhaustion I feel all the time.
There have been some new studies coming out about linking plastic use to various health issues(although there have been no long term studies on this subject) in recent years on top of some of the environmental concerns with plastic(recycling is a scam,unless its high value plastics, like the types of plastics you find in car dash boards). I find that a lot of reusable plastic containers either end up "staining" or out right cracking or breaking over time and end up being thrown out anyway, feeding into the disposable economy. I'll start by replacing all my plastic containers, water bottles and cookware with glass and stainless steel options(glass and stainless steel look better anyway). I have all ready started on this, I've replaced most of my cooking utensils with stainless steel options.
In the new year I'm going to avoid shopping at large corporate chains as much as possible and switch to either local chains or independently owned businesses. I'm not against large corporations, they are necessary in certain areas of the economy like heavy engineering, aerospace, research and development, etc, etc. But when it comes down to stuff on the retail\restaurant level, in my opinion, I think that large corporations do more harm them good and encourage what I call the soulless and disposable economy. So I'd rather support local businesses, unless its some niche thing I can only find at Walmart or Amazon.
Locally own Restaurants, pubs and Coffee Shops.
Over the last year or two, I have stopped going to large chain(I still go to local chains though) restaurants and coffee shops either because their food is over priced for what you get, not very good or makes me feel kinda sick after eating there, and more often then not all of the above. However one thing I have to watch out for is "local" restaurants or pubs that are owned by a large parent company disguised as a local small business. I have seen this more with pubs and clubs, which were at one point privately owned, but were bought by a large company.
Thirft, Pawn Shops and Flea Markets
I've decided I'm no longer going to buy stuff "new" unless its clothing(though I buy used clothing a lot as well) or if I need something right now or I can't find it anywhere else. I find the stuff that's new these days is over priced, cheaply made and will likely break\wear out with-in 5 years(disposable economy). So why would I spend full price on something that's cheaply made and going to depreciate in value, when I can find the same thing or something of higher quality used for a fraction of the price. If you go to thrift stores in areas that have a lot of millionaires living in the area, you can find a lot of really high end stuff for very cheap.
Farmers Markets, Local Butchers
Small family owned grocery stores have for the most part disappeared from my area a long time ago, there are still some around but they are 1-3 hours away so its not practical for me to shop at them on a regular basis. However there are still Butcher shops and Farmers markets(Not in the winter though) in my area so I'll be trying to shift some of the grocery shopping to those places when possible
This is one area of my life I've been neglecting and need to work on more. Its also kinda personal as well so I'm not going to go into detail to much. For one I'm a Germanic Heathen so I'm going to dedicated more time daily to either practicing and learning more amount it as well as Rodnoevry(Slavic Paganism) and Celtic Heathery. I'll also be spending more time reading up on philosophy in particular Greek philosophy from the classical period and a couple of others from closer to our time. And doing more Yoga, Yoga classes are included in my gym membership, so I might as well get the most out of it.
I've had problems most of my life with social anxiety and poor social skills, though I don't know if I have bad social skills or just my anxiety makes me have bad social skills. So I'll be making for effort to try and socialise with new people and get outside my comfort zone more.
Pretty self explanatory
I started on this project a while ago and completely forgot about it(I kept putting it off till I forgot about it), until the other day I was going threw one of my hard drives and came across the project. A few years ago I started archiving YouTube videos of people who might get canceled by the cancel mob. I'm not talking about political content, I'm talking about archiving people like George Carlin and Bill Hicks who were very politically incorrect comedians and would say things that might upset the cancel mob. So this year I will be restarting this project and expanding it outside of politically incorrect comedians from the 90's that might fall victim to cancel culture and start archiving YouTube videos from smaller channels, in case YouTube does something like removing channels that they don't view as being profitable, YouTube its self just goes under and ceases to exist as we know it or some other unforeseen shenanigans. However, unless the videos are public domain(or I have permission too) I will not be re-uploading them to another platform(Likely Peer tube or IPFS).
I'm going to continue working on the off-grid project as well and start on doing some "Bush Crafting" stuff as well.
After writing this blog post I was unsure if I should've changed the title of this post to "Disconnecting from Modern Society" because I realised all of these resolutions/goals/projects run opposite of what modern society wants from the individual. A side from maybe stop procrastinating and reducing plastic however that goes against the disposable economy, so you be the judge if it does not does not. It also shows that you do not need to go live in a cabin in the mountains to disconnect your self from modern society, and that you can do it while living with in the "system",sorta like what Václav Havel said about learning to live with in the truth in his book power to the powerless.
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