Many people think that the point in life is to solve their problems and be happy. But happiness is usually a fleeting sensation, and you never get rid of your problems. Your purpose in life may be to become more of who you are and more engaged with the people and the life around you, to really live your life. That may sound obvious, yet many people spend their time avoiding life.

~ Thomas Moore

Keep shaking the box Mr. President. Shake it harder. You're the circuit breaker while people wake up.

6 AM. It's cold again. Google says it's 15 below. I'll be delivering mail in it all day. There were times yesterday when my fingers burned. The tips of some of them have cracked. It doesn't take long opening and closing metal and plastic mailbox doors all day long. On long driving stretches I would alternate putting a hand in a jacket pocket to warm it.

I quit complaining about the cold a long time ago. Oh, I feel the resistance to it. There are times when I do everything I can to talk myself out of entering it. But I think what it comes down to is there is nothing I can do about it. The cold just is. The only thing I can do is pay attention to my reactions to it. The more I resist it the worse it gets. If it wasn't for the cold I wouldn't appreciate warmth, the warmth of this fire, etc.

That's it for now. Not much, but it's something. Words have been written. That part of me is kept alive amidst the daily demands of life.

I hope you have a great day. Stay warm. :-)

Fire 131

2.12.25

“A philosophy of life is a bundle of wisdom you have gathered from your reading and experience. It is not a rigid ideology that allows no development and complexity. It’s a living thing, a developing idea about life that belongs to you alone.” -- Thomas Moore

It's 20 below. Full moon (snow moon) tomorrow.

I shut my headlamp off during my run last night. Didn't need it. The glow on the snow from the moonlight was enough. Got home late from work and filling my mom's woodstove . Time enough to water the pasture animals, workout, eat dinner, clean up, and go to bed. 5 hours later here I am in front of the fire.

The quote above speaks to me. I have a philosophy of life. It's complex and flexible . . . most of the time. I suffer when it gets too rigid. Something I've learned over the years.

When I think about the bundle of wisdom that I've gathered from my reading and experience the voices of the tribal peoples that lived on this continent are always present. Sitting Bull. Crazy Horse. Geronimo. Chief Joseph. And countless others.

There's a line by Daniel Quinn in a pocket book he put out early in his career. The title of it is "The Book of the Damned." He calls our culture the Takers. He calls the tribal peoples the Leavers. He's speaks mythologically. Because we all have a general story of what happened at the conquest of this continent.

He said the Leavers spoke to us in poetry. If you read some of their oratory it is poetic. Their imaginations were fed by the nonhuman world. Much more than ours. Some explorers I've read said they were childlike.

Quinn said we just patted them on the head and carried on with our conquest. The vision to improve the world and turn it into a paradise was too strong for most to listen.

Well, anyway, I always wonder what would've happened if we, the Takers, would've listened better.

That's it for this meandering musing. I have to start a jeep so I have something somewhat warm to drive to work in.

I hope you have a great day.

Fire 129

2.11.25

6 AM. It's minus 5 out there. I leave for the mail trail in a half hour. Looking at a heavy day. The Amazon drop didn't show up until late on Saturday. So it'll be two days worth of Amazon on a Monday, which are usually heavy anyway.

It's been easier to get up and go to work since I've learned about Bitcoin. The promise of it is that it holds its value better than the dollar. It's been two and half years since then and that has proven to be true.

When I learned the dollars I'm earning are depreciating roughty 7 percent a year it was like a punch in the gut. Since I graduated high school I always worked under the assumption that if you work hard enough at anything you can get ahead. It doesn't feel that way to me anymore.

To get ahead it seems you have to be lucky, invest in the stock market or real estate, plus work a job. Most people who work all day don't have the time or energy to play the stock market or watch the real estate market when they get home from work.

Our money system rewards high net worth people while it punishes low net worth people like me and most of my neighbors. Once you climb on to that treadmill, it seems, your compelled to run harder and faster while the currency you're working for depreciates.

In the end though, when talking long term investments, a healthy planet is the aim. Nature always bats last.

Fire 129

2.10.25

#Bitcoin

When rich speculators prosper

While farmers lose their land;

when government officials spend money

on weapons instead of cures;

when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible

while the poor have nowhere to turn-

all this is robbery and chaos.

It is not in keeping with the Tao.

~ The Tao Te Ching

Sunday Seven AM. A day off from delivering mail. I'm in front of the fire while the rest of the family sleeps. Once and awhile I'll see a cat scurry by. We've got 4 of them living with us for the time being.

This morning Skippy curled up next to my head in bed. I was mostly awake worrying about this or that hoping to get back to sleep. So I decided to lay my head on him and listen to him pur. Calming, but I couldn't get back to sleep.

So I got up, took my cold shower, meditated, and here I am in front of the fire. All is well. Thankful for this fire on this 10 below morning.

I delivered mail mostly on unplowed roads yesterday. Not the first time. I had the old jeep in 4 wheel drive for the whole route. I delivered to every box and house. We were told to deliver at our own discretion. Any roads we didn't think we could travel or boxes we couldn't get to we could pass up. I usually do the opposite and see if I can get it all done accurately. I like the challenge. Plus, not that many people are out. I kind of feel like I have the area to myself. So I get to 4 wheel through snow and get paid for it. It could be worse.

I did take a nap on the route. When I get tired I will pull over in a safe location, set my smartphone timer for 4 minutes, and take a power nap. Like clockwork I can fall asleep in less then 30 seconds. Three and half minutes later the timer goes off, I wake up, hit end lunch on my scanner, and I'm refreshed.

I started experimenting with this after listening to an ultra marathoner on the Joe Rogan show. They told how during a 100 mile race they would periodically find a spot to lay down, sleep for 1 minute, reset their body, get up, and continue running. So I worked that into my mail delivery method. I average 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night. So those power naps get me through the day.

Yesterday was different though. My timer never went off. When I woke up I saw white woods and road. I thought I'd fallen asleep while driving and crashed, or maybe was dead. Then I looked at my phone and it was at 13 minutes and counting. I knew then what happened. I set my stopwatch instead of my timer. Can't make that mistake again. We're only allowed a half hour of lunch a day.

One time, while delivering out on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, I woke up with a knock on the window. Here it was a guy that lived up the road and was passing by. He saw me sitting there with my head back, eyes closed, and mouth hanging open. He was checking to see if I was dead. I just laughed when he told me that. I should've been more embarrassed, but I wasn't. I felt less judged delivering in Indian Country. I miss delivering out there. If this culture ever totally collapses I might just try to go live out there.

Put me back in the 19th century and I would've been one of the Europeans that joined the Indians. What did Benjamin Franklin say?

"No European who has tasted Savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.”

I hope you have a great day!

Fire 128

2.9.25

Bitcoin allows wage workers to save and plan for the future. It has no issuer. No third part risk. It's going to work this morning knowing I can buy Bitcoin. In some ways it's giving me a new lease on life.

2.8.25

#Bitcoin

5:45 AM. There's a few inches of fresh snow on the deck. That's the way it looks from in here anyway. It's supposed to snow all day. They're calling for up to 8 inches.

I will leave for the mail trail early. It's less stressful when I can pull it off. The problem is words start flowing and it's hard to shut if off.

I look forward to a day off tomorrow. I also look forward to seeing the people I work with this morning. I could tell you about some of them, but I'm running out of time.

Screw it. I have a few minutes. I talked to a carrier yesterday that grew up near me. Guessing she's in her 60's. The house she grew up in went up for sale recently. I deliver mail to it. Her Dad was born in it and wanted to die in it. Guessing he was born sometime in the 40's. But he and his wife moved off the farm and in with one of his sons. So he didn't quite meet his goal. My oldest son is thinking about buying the place. So that's interesting.

I learned that in a short conversation while getting ready to pack my mail into my jeep yesterday. Real people real stories. Soul stories. Stories of the place I live in. Powerful. There's more to a mail route than meets the eye when you listen more than talk.

Ok. I promised myself I would leave earlier. I'm sticking to it. I hope you have a great day!

Fire 127

2.8.25

5:45 AM. The thermometer reads 4. The second armload of wood is burning hot. I'm on my 5th day of work. One more to go and it's a day off. Then it's back to work Monday. One day isn't enough, especially if I will be spending it clearing snow out of our driveway.

It feels like I'm at the end of something. I can't put my finger on it. Might be seasonal. Could be the work week coming to an end. Maybe it's the job.

There's a terror in the paychecks ending, so I keep going for my own and family's well being.

I never planned on making a career out of this. Yet I don't know how long the Post Office will be around in its current form. More and more people I talk to mention privatization. We deliver a lot of business bulk mail and packages. First class letters it seems less and less. So we'll see.

Collectively we keep investing in technology, speed, and efficiency. So more and more our humanness seems to be less of a factor.

In the end I'm hoping my love for the land and the mystery it provides will carry me through whatever a change is coming. And it might be nothing. Still, though, it seems the depth of my humaness is equal to the depth of the relationship I have with the land. And that's been neglected with 6 day a week mail delivery since the middle of 2023. And it's nothing a few days off or a weeks vacation can remedy. It has to do with lifestyle. Patterns. Habits. A challenge in this modern world we live in.

I'm off to deliver mail. I hope you have a great day!

Fire 126

2.7.25

Fresh snow on the deck this morning. Maybe two inches. It started falling just after dark last night. I watched it fall through the porch light from the living room. At times it fell hard and fast making me nervous for the day to come.

Monday morning I drove to work in the dark in a snowstorm. I couldn't see well. The road was a white mat. No lines, lanes, or edge.

The steering has play in my jeep. When I turn it to the left or right it doesn't respond for awhile. There were times I found myself in the other lane of traffic until I discovered I was. Tight steering would've been nice. Thank goodness it was just County E. Which runs straight east and west with little traffic where I drive it.

So today I'm going to get an earlier start with the hope the plows have been out.

I have snow to sweep off my jeep and a fire to close down.

I hope you have a great day.

Fire 125

2.6.25

I deliver mail for a wage today. It's easier to get up and go knowing some of that wage will be Bitcoin by the end of the day.

#Bitcoin

Someday, they say, the world will be priced in Bitcoin. With the way things are going I think it will be.

#Bitcoin

6 AM. It's 0 out there. This is morning fire #124. Off to the mail trail in a half hour. I'll be heading out to start The Ford in 15 minutes. Hopefully it'll start. It started yesterday morning at single digits below zero. Never know though. Mystery of machines.

I went quote hunting this morning. I went with Rumi.

"But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things

have gone with others. Unfold

your own myth, without complicated explanation,

so everyone will understand the passage,

We have opened you."

My own myth today is dad delivering mail while mom stays home with children in a world working against this. The world wants mom and dad in the economy and the children in school.

The Bitcoin community tells me this is because of fiat currency. The money we work for doesn't buy as much as it used to. So both parents have to work now to make ends meet. When my grandparents came of age in the late 4O's and early 50's they tell me this wasn't the case. A family could get by on a single income.

I'm out of time. This was fun. Wish I had another hour at least. I like writing in myth. Part of who we are is the stories we tell ourselves.

Thank you for reading. I hope you have a great day!

2.5.25

#Bitcoin

Bitcoin has been going strong for 16 years. Scams don't last 16 years.

#Bitcoin

It seems Trump is ending Pax Americana with tariffs. In the world of business this is known as creative destruction. That's the way I understand it.

#Bitcoin

We're watching the global monetary order reset in real-time:

- The WW2 economic model is breaking down

- The US is reshoring & weakening the dollar

- The world is de-dollarizing

- The Fed will be forced to cut rates

- The US will inflate away its debt

Bitcoin is will absorb the shift. This isn’t just another trade war, it’s a global monetary realignment.

People think tariffs are just about trade, or that the Fed will hold rates forever to "fight inflation". They don’t understand how deep this shift really is.

The post-WW2 economic system is dead. The US is reindustrializing. The dollar is going lower.

For the first time in human history, we the people have engineered a monetary system accessible to all that protects us. Bitcoin will be the biggest winner in this new era.

Buy the dip. Long live Satoshi. Long live Bitcoin

~ Jack Mallers

#Bitcoin

"Energy flows where attention goes."

I wonder what Thoreau would've thought of Bitcoin.

"That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world’s raffle! A subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a comment, what a satire on our institutions!"

~ Henry David Thoreau

#Bitcoin

"You have to make your own world, instead of succumbing to the one that presses on you. You have to turn the tables on what appears to be fate or the full weight of society. Against the greatest odds, you have to keep your wits about you and refuse to surrender to anyone or anything less than divine.” -- Thomas Moore

I have so much to say about this quote. There's so much in it for me.

I feel like 25 years ago I did this without knowing it. The world pressed down on me. It scared me. I had to change. There was no other choice.

So I rebelled. I'm going to live my life my way I thought. It ends the same for all of us anyway.

If you follow my posts right about now you might be like how many times have I heard this? Which I understand. Yet soulwork or therapy is telling your story again and again. Refining it so you know who you are and where you have been.

I tell it on here so I don't have to pay somebody to give me pills to fix my psyche (Is it mine?) to help me adapt to an insane system.

The quote though has something in it that I haven't talked much about. The last sentence. I hear it telling me not to surrender to anyone except the divine.

Well I don't. Because then I'm back to square one again being all anxious and depressed.

And of course this takes me back to Daniel Quinn's "Ishmael." Another recurring theme in my writings, in case you haven't noticed. :-)

Here's a point that he made that doesn't get talked about at all. So instead of complaining about it I will talk about it here.

God, he said, didn't start paying attention to us until we started settling down, growing crops, storing food, growing our population, and growing cities.

Prior to that, for hundreds of thousands of years, while we were roaming the earth hunting and gathering God wasn't paying attention to us. We were on par with the game we were hunting.

But everything changed once we took up agriculture. In our history this is called The Agricultural Revolution.

It doesn't get talked about much like the base layer of the Internet. They are mechanisms that lay the foundation for life as we know it now.

No fields full of crops, no cities. No base layer to the internet, and you don't read this.

So what does this have to do with the last sentence of the quote you might ask.

Understanding this about our history and God's willingness to ignore us for those hundreds of thousands of years got me wondering about his or her or its intentions.

I never wanted to surrender to a divine being that did this. That might sound like hubris to some ears. But I think part of being human being is wrestling with God.

After all it gave me a brain to think and nervous system to feel with.

I mean was I doing God's work when I was cutting trees with a chainsaw to make a living?

When I started out, the day I turned 18, I thought I was. I imagined the trees I was cutting they were being shipped off to make 4' X 8' sheets of chip board would help build nice homes for families across the world.

Then one day the world pressed down on me. Out of desperation I started reading books. Surely somebody has went through this I thought. Suffering alone is the worst kind of suffering.

And in one of the books I read the author, who I've known since I read his work, said something that shook me to my core:

We have to silence the world to do what we do to it. (Paraphrasing)

There were birds living in the trees that I cut to make chip board. I don't ever remember hearing their song on the logging jobs I did for 5 years. I silenced myself and I silenced them to get the job done.

The world was partly dead, and so was I. Yet there was something inside of me that you would not surrender.

The part that sat in a deer stand with my Dad. The part that sat on the ice with my Grandpa and Dad fishing. The part that was at first base in Little League while the wind blew through the dark green oak leaves next to the diamond.

I surrendered to the God of the hunt, game, and leisure. And I turned my back on the cold, calculating God of numbers and rules measured growth at all costs.

Fire #121

2.2.25