If you experience it, it’s the truth.
Werner Erhard
The same thing believed is a lie.
I doubt that this’ll come as a shock to you, but I’ve reached the conclusion that very little of modern life is, by any rational definition, real.
Virtually everything in our culture is synthesized or spun, manufactured or modified or marketed, imaginary or re-imagined. Lies greet us more often than truth.
Every product, whether it’s online or on a store shelf; every package and every commercial; every website, every video and every broadcast or stream, and every newspaper and magazine; every campaign ad and stump speech; every law and regulation; none of it is what it appears to be.
Everything is an attempt to manipulate our behavior.
At the same time, inexplicably, we ignore our own direct experience. We surrender our free will. We’d rather believe than think.
We know better.
Reality still exists. (And no, perception is not reality.) That’s where I spend my time, experiencing it directly and shrugging off attempts to manipulate me.
It takes conscious, concerted effort. Maybe you should try it.
When you do, not only will you be keepin’ it real — you’ll be out of control.
Before searing heat and oppressive humidity drove me back into cooler confines — our heat index topped out at 108°F this afternoon — this morning I got a little work done outside.
Our resident songbirds were letting me know that their buffet was bare. They perched in the cedars over the picnic table, screaming impatiently as I refilled each feeder with seed mix and swooping in quickly the moment I walked away.
After that, I made use of some of the gravel that Deb’s cousin brought us the other day. First, I hauled a couple of loads to the north end of the driveway and repaired scars left by July’s torrential rain. What we really need is a whole truckload, but that won’t make sense ’til the camper’s gone.
I filled the wheelbarrow a third time and brought it to the fire pit off the driveway. The interior of the fire ring, despite my best efforts to level it, still was badly pitched. Today I added gravel to the low side, tamped it down, added more gravel and packed it again.
That’ll make a big difference when campfire season comes ’round.
It wasn’t yet 9:30am when I finished. I’d been working less than two hours. I was drenched in sweat.
That was enough of that.
Deb (who’s back at work today, by the way) once observed that I shouldn’t talk about sharp, pointy things quite so often here on Ubi Libertas Blog. That was almost four years ago, if memory serves. Now that my accumulated knives are with me again, having retrieved them from storage last month, I’m writing about them a lot.
I expect she’ll admonish me again soon.
From the age of nine, I’ve carried a knife almost every day. The unwritten rule always has been that a folding knife rides in (or clipped to) a pocket, and a fixed-blade knife belongs on the belt or in a pack.
It was okay to break the first part of that rule with large folders (a Buck 110 comes to mind), but I was in my 50s before I learned that it was possible to pocket a small fixed-blade.
I found out about pocket sheaths.
It’s a simple concept — pick your favorite smallish fixed-blade and find a pocket sheath that accommodates both the knife and your preferred pocket. Most of these sheaths have a couple of bays, also allowing you to carry a small flashlight, a slipjoint knife, or whatever.
I myself have a couple of front-pocket sheaths. One holds a Bark River Custom Micro Drop Point and a 1-AAA LED light.
The other, which I put together only recently, combines a Koster 3V Scout with a three-inch Überleben Hexå ferro rod. That setup clearly is more woodsy than EDC.
But my favorite pocket rig brings together a Bark River Little Creek (McKnight grind) and a complete fire kit — ferro rod, striker, a chunk of primo fatwood and a length of jute twine. The sheath rides in my back pocket like a wallet.
There are larger pocket sheaths than these out there, to accommodate more substantial knives, but honestly they’ve never appealed to me. A big knife in a pocket kinda defeats the purpose.
The sweet spot, it seems to me, is a slender fixed-blade no more than six inches long overall. Anything much larger than that rides better on my belt.
Maybe you already knew about pocket sheaths. If you didn’t, now you have another option.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB