I’ll begin today by re-re-repeating what I’ve said before about Miss Smudge — she’s changed over the last six months, and for the better. We’re so much more connected these days. She’s increasingly demonstrative, expressive, affectionate.
We communicate. She smiles. She knows. She trusts (pictured).
I don’t disapprove of anything she does. She appreciates that.
My sweet girl Scout was Queen of the Tail-Waggers, always happy and showing it, right to the very end. Smudge never has been much into wagging — until the last month or so, that is. These days, an enthusiastically waving tail accompanies her irrepressible smile.
I can’t say that I’d be lost without Smudge, but she does bring purpose and joy to my life. That’s more than enough.
Yesterday morning brought refreshment that’s been missing on The Mountain for a while. The temp inside the cabin dropped to 66°F. Outdoors, it was 61°F.
Wednesday morning’s low is expected to be 53°F. A rainy Thursday will see a high only in the mid-60s.
I welcome that.
Everything I’ve ever done has prepared me to take on this life, either by supplying skills and motivation or because it pushed me away. Both have carried me to my proper place in this world.
To some people, I suppose, an existence like mine would be difficult. It’s not that hard, though, really, or at least I don’t find it so. Wanting to be here helps.
I’m on the grid, for cryin’ out loud. I’m 20 minutes from town. I make my home in a relatively temperate climate. I have neighbors 500 yards from my cabin.
It may be rustic, but it’s nowhere near primitive.
Now here’s some homework for you — I want you to Google the names “Richard Proenneke” and “Marion Howard.” Find, read and absorb their stories.
Proenneke, an Iowan, moved to a remote area of southwest Alaska in 1968. At the age of 52, he carved out a home and lived for 30 years in the wilderness before returning to “civilization.” He left his cabin and the records of his experience to the National Park Service. His legacy lives on.
Howard was 56 in 1965 when he shrugged-off modern life and entered the rugged, inhospitable Inyo Mountains of California. The Pennsylvania native crafted for himself a remarkable and eccentric existence — including stone cabins and rope ladders over 150-foot waterfalls — in one of the most inaccessible places in the Lower 48. He became known as “The Beekeeper of McElvoy Canyon,” ultimately emerging in 1980.
Both men undertook their endeavors alone. They lived alone. They met challenges alone.
And that’s the crux of it. We humans are, by nature, social creatures. The quest for complete solitude — as a way of life — isn’t “normal.” The ability to pursue and carry out such a solitary existence, and to thrive despite the difficulties, is exceptional.
See, lots of folks think they can do that. They’re strong and they’re able, and they have the necessary skills. Most who summon the courage to try will fail, however, succumbing not to physical hardship but to their social nature.
In short, they can’t stand being alone.
I admire Dick Proenneke and Marion Howard. Though I don’t seek to emulate them, and speaking as someone who appreciates solitude and lives outside what some would consider mainstream society, I still can learn from what they did.
You probably can, too.
My comment yesterday about it being better (and more important) to harrass Cracker Barrel than to push for disclosure of the Epstein files generated some reaction. I don’t know if I’m surprised or not.
I didn’t explain what I meant, and perhaps I should’ve. Allow me to break it down.
Epstein was manifest evil. So were the people who joined in his perversions. But Epstein, regardless of how he died, is dead. And the people whose names appear in those “files,” elites all, will never, ever be held to account. Never.
They’re part of a system that protects them. No amount of public pressure will change that. It’s delusional to believe otherwise.
The same is true of virtually all political corruption, whether it’s simple graft, federal election fraud, or shielding a mentally incompetent “president” from public scrutiny and installing an unelected, unaccountable shadow government. The perpetrators are barricaded behind the wall of the Permanent State.
“Politics is downstream from culture.”
Andrew Breitbart
And what about Cracker Barrel? How can a passing cultural issue be more important than moral depravity, political corruption and our nation’s future?
The short answer is what’s become known as The Breitbart Doctrine: “Politics is downstream from culture.”
If we mean to restore America, it must begin with restoring its culture, not obsessing about its politics. I’ll give you a couple of illustrations.
Trump is a cultural figure, or phenomenon, much more than he is a political one. Likewise MAGA. Though the political process lifted him into office, a cultural movement drove that process.
To the extent that we’re now reclaiming ground lost to the Left, it’s attributable to advances on the cultural front.
Second, take a good look at the damage done to this country since 2008 by Democrats and other anti-American progressives. Very little of that can be chalked up to legislation, executive orders or politics generally.
The Left focused its collective attention on prosecuting The Culture Wars. It won battle after battle, to the point that America was becoming unrecognizable.
Democrats’ political victories were the result of cultural wins, not the other way around.
The Left knows, for example, that politics is power, but that culture shapes politics. The Left knows that in order to control the conversation in the public square, it first must control the language, and they’ve done that to devastating effect.
We have to be at least as smart as our enemies. If nothing else, we must learn from them.
And that, in my opinion, is why it’s more productive to talk about Cracker Barrel than about Epstein. It’s time to quit fantasizing about payback and do what actually works.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable