TMI

I continue to seek answers to questions that are mostly unanswerable in my current context ... yet my wanderings on the web—sometimes directed by others, mostly haphazard jumpings of my own—occasionally offer droplets of insight.

Summer is in full bloom here on the prairie and with it, as every year, come back memories of my childhood almost always spent with either set of grandparents. They are my fondest memories from my childhood and interestingly they have something in common- a kind of freedom provided by the old and the wise in my family.

We finally had a deviation from the unusually damp and cool spring here, and I made good use of it. I’ve been dodging the showers as best I can, getting the garden plot ready for planting. Yesterday morning, I finished that task; and in the afternoon, the snolfs and I finally got the garden planted!

For anyone unfamiliar with the acronym FAP, it refers to our satlink provider’s Fair Access Policy—we’re permitted 200MB of data download per “rolling 24 hours”, and if we exceed it, our internet access is severely throttled. As in, below dialup speed throttled.

So yeah, that’s why you didn’t hear from me yesterday. It gave me more space for thinking, however, so I will probably have something somewhat substantive to opine on soon. But not today—in fact, as I type this I am in danger of being left behind. What began as a promise to Snolf the First to take him to a Rush concert has turned into an all-family overnight Rushian adventure. It should be a lot of fun!

After Jorge’s gentle nudge, I’ve returned to the project of updating the old Greymatter posts. Mostly I’m just adding tags to them and reassigning appropriate authorship where necessary ... but for some reason those old posts aren’t included in searches until I add tags. Weird.

Anyway, the travels down memory lane have left me missing several people this morning ... most notably, Ian (of the lost and lamented Ianism), Morpheus of The Statrix, freeman, and formerly regular commenters “Laura” and “Herself”. I also miss Kirsten’s Poddy Talk podcasts ... She shared some schemes she’s plotting with me a while back, so I can patiently wait to see what hatches there.

There are more, of course ... this isn’t an exhaustive list. If any of you drop by here from time to time still, I hope you’re doing well, and I hope you know you’re missed.

For those who want a better sense of who the Sunni Snake is, I offer these random glimpses:
  When I read something that is patently bullshit, in good reptilian fashion I typically vent with a, "Ssssst!"
  Half Scandinavian. Didn't get the blonde and buxom genes, though.
  Got the stoicism, and stick-straight hair.
  Other half is yer general western European muttly mix.
  Because both of my parents died relatively young, I have an inordinate fear of following in their footsteps.
  That's really the only serious fear I have.
  Although I try to be very respectful of others' preferences, I'm a toucher, and can get quite unhappy fairly quickly if I'm unable to express my affection for someone physically.

  Yep, that's gotten me in trouble sometimes.
  Alcohol stokes my muse.
  Alcohol plus caffeine is even better. (Anyone got drink recipes that include both, but not sodas?)
  Southpaw!
  I have been a hard-core science nerd practically since coming out of diapers.
  Mushy romantic songs really get to me, even though I know better than to believe 'em.
  I also tend to score high on those test-your-geekiness quizzes all over the web.

  I don't put a lot of faith in those kinds of quizzes.
  Most "psychological" tests I've seen aren't worth much, either.
  Being pregnant was so enjoyable I regret not having more children.
  Once, I tried to pretend I wasn't smart in order to get guys to like me.
  It lasted maybe three days.
  Guys who mattered liked me anyway. (I'm sorry I didn't always recognize that you mattered then, though!)
  I don't have a favorite color. I do not intend to try to choose one.

  INTJ (highly borderline on all but "I"); Virgo; year of the ox.
  At my best (far as I can tell), 35-25-36; 119. At the height of pregnancy, around 165.
  Don't ask what they are now; I'm working on improving them.
  Besides, I care more how I look and what I can do than what any numbers say about my body.
  I love snow, and cold weather in general.
  The first time I saw real mountains was in Switzerland. I felt like I'd finally returned to a beloved home, and it was genuinely hard to leave them.
  Downhill skiing gets me incredibly randy.

  My body's thermostat seems to be set a notch higher than most people's. Thus my nickname "the hot-blooded snake".
  Whenever I hear or read the word "Aristotle", I get an image in my mind of dog testicles. That's happened since I was about ten years old. I don't know why!
  Somehow my brain scrambled learning green and orange. It still requires conscious thought to make sure I say the color I mean.
  I'd like to kiss my eighth-grade boyfriend just one more time.
  Rock; jazz; some metal; big band and swing; classical; blues. Not so much opera or country, but I have found some gems in those genres. Friends have given me an appreciation of new age, punk, and folk.
  The first album I saved up for was A Night at the Opera. It was severely scratched on one side, but I loved having it so much I didn't return it.
  My first fangirl obsession was the Bee Gees, starting with Jive Talkin'. I bought Main Course, then all their old syrupy stuff. I liked their disco stuff too, but not as much, mostly because it's a lot of Barry's falsetto, and I like Robin's quavery vocals better.

  I taught myself to play the flute, and through sheer determination, became pretty good at it. I also taught myself to play the oboe (with minimal private lessons), tootle passably on the clarinet and trumpet, and given enough time, can peck out some simple tunes on a piano by ear. I'm not good at sight-reading and improvisation, though.
  Unless I've had recent vocal instruction, I cannot carry a tune, even if it's inside a hermetically-sealed, lead-lined box with both of my hands wrapped tightly around it.
  That doesn't stop me from singing, sometimes quite enthusiastically.
  But I'm pretty self-conscious about it, so you'd hafta sneak up on me to hear how awful I am.
  One of my favorite pairs of shoes has been a very comfortable pair of gorgeous blue suede shoes. Bright, electric blue high heels that I often wore to my teaching job at a conservative, Catholic university with a black denim miniskirt or short black jumper with silver buttons.
  The administration at the school seemed to like me almost as much as the students did.
  Probably for different reasons, though.

  For many, many years I couldn't watch scary movies or read scary books. I didn't believe the stuff was real, but my imagination made it come so alive that I'd have nightmares for weeks.
  For a while I wanted to be the brunette version of Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In.
  But I also wanted to be a boy when I was young.
  Not having to wear shirts outside was the main reason.
  Well, that and the fact that I would have gotten toy cars and stuff to play with. Instead I had to wait for my younger brother to come along.
  The first deeply influential book I read was Jane Eyre. I could relate to a lot of it, and re-read it often for years. I give it a lot of credit for awakening the free-thinking individualist in me.
  I have no guilty pleasures. Guilt is an emotion I very rarely experience.

  My prim Norwegian grandmother taught me that it's okay to pee outside sometimes.
  Since I never thought I'd have children, I was almost totally unprepared for the undertaking when I got pregnant with my first snolf.
  Oh, yeah: SNake + wOLF = snolf. There's one of each flavor.
  Despite my lack of preparation, and in large part due to Lobo's patient, loving support (especially in the early years) and my own mother's fine example in many ways, being a mom is a gig I'm really enjoying.
  I love seafood, but not many in my family do, so I don't get to eat it nearly as much as I'd like.
  Identifying "favorites" is something I totally suck at. My favorites change as I learn more, and try different things.
  The song that best captures my approach to living is Rush's Available Light.

  I'll gladly admit it when I'm wrong, but I'll only do it when I'm convinced I really am wrong. That seems to really piss off some people.
  Thrill-seeking is fun, but I'm not stupid about it.
  I'm not as sanguine as I used to be about starting to look older.
  But I'm pleased to see more silver in my hair ... even though my hair also seems to be getting a bit wavy too.
  It's a tossup whether I'm happiest outside -- hiking, camping, shooting -- or whipping up something in a nicely-equipped kitchen with great music playing.
  The only person I've ever wanted to be, other than myself, is Marie Curie. Still fantasize about being a science goddess sometimes.
  The thing I dislike most about myself is my lack of mechanical aptitude. Being good with cooking tools doesn't count.

I have always loved to travel. My parents often told me about my great enjoyment of a trip to the upper Midwest taken when I was just three years old—I don’t know whether I’ve reconstructed things from their recollections, or if they’re genuine, but I’ve a few wisps of remembrance of immense bridges and lots of water from the trip through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. By the time I was old enough to consider it, I was yearning to get out of small-town Ohio and see some of the world. It took decades to accomplish that, but I have, yet wanderlust still pounds in my blood.

As I got older, I became fascinated with not just the places, but the people, too. That’s a big part of why I became a psychologist, but even so, the academic interest has never exceeded the intensely personal interest I have in humans. By “intensely personal” I don’t mean busybody nosiness—I simply mean an interest in the unending variety and creativity of human creatures. As a teenager, I read Richard Bach’s Illusions, and much of it resonated with me. One of the more powerful elements was Don Shimoda’s attempt to teach “the reluctant Messiah” of the profound differences between individuals—I’d thought a lot about that years before reading the book, and grokked its importance then. This was the first time, as best I recall, that I confronted the reality that other individuals didn’t recognize that truth. I think that I had also begun to realize that freedom and tolerance are the essentials for creating a happy, healthy person and life, although it was (again) to be many years before I realized the full implications of my youthful philosophical ponderings. Having recently returned from a walkabout to the Arizona desert, doing a lot of thinking and observing (both within myself and of the areas I traveled to and through), I’ve been powerfully reminded of the glorious diversity of humankind.

From the cold, frozen Midwest, my companion and I traveled south and west. Breakfast was typically coffee and eggs of some sort, but as the temperature warmed as we neared our destination, so did the spiciness of the ingredients accompanying the eggs. Tabasco sauce was ever-present on the table, or brought with meals without needing to ask—a welcome sign that I was among people who like their food the way I do. Shapes became less pasty and pudgy—darker skin and darker, straighter hair became common. Physiques seemed to separate into “lean” and “fat”—few people appeared to exist in that corporate-cubicle in-between of couch-potatodom. The pace of life slowed. As the landscape became drier, the effort required to live in its embrace became a visible constraint—but not an insurmountable one. When we reached the small town that was our base of operations for the walkabout, I was met with another surprise. Or, more accurately, I saw it shimmering in the distance as we drove through the desert—a glimmering white sea that was not sand, not salt, but aluminum. Snowbirds fly to the area in their RVs, creating a senior-citizen city the likes of which I’d never imagined. The sound of a toddler’s laugh from a nearby table at Sunday breakfast was as foreign there as a moose call would be in downtown Los Angeles.

All that differentness, in a relatively small trip across one small area of this planet ...

The reality of Richard Bach’s message walloped me again. Each of us is different, unique. The commonality we all share may be no more than being Homo sapiens.

So how can anyone dare to presume to tell someone how to live her or his life? How could the nannies possibly conceive that their narrow little boxes can adequately hold all of humanity’s (and inhumanity’s) possibilities? How can I tell my children in good conscience that I know what’s best for them, that I know how they “ought to” live, when the times, society, and knowledge they’re growing up in are so different from when I grew up?

The nanny-ninnies can’t conceive of my horror at their prescriptions and proscriptions—but that doesn’t stop their efforts to push their ideas on others. I’m not convinced that their pleas of doing good are sincere, anyway; it’s a good cover and nothing more, as any perceptive individual can twig, even under the cover of the state-approved media outlets. Their ultimate answer, when they’re pushed to it, is that they’re protecting us from anarchy—a claim that stops many intelligent individuals, wrongly, in their tracks.

I’ve never shied away from the A-word. I transformed from confused statist to full-blown ancap in a span of days, and was much happier for it. While I’ve often pondered how to best offer my thoughts on the beneficence of anarchy to the freedom movement, it has never been an important enough issue to take up my digital pen and create the essay. Now, it would seem, I don’t need to. I came across a clear, beautiful essay that says it much better than I likely ever could. Butler Shaffer is the author, and it’s worth interrupting this ramble to read it now (or refresh yourself with it, if you’ve already seen the essay at LewRockwell.com. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

For those who didn’t bother to follow the link, here’s a paragraph that sums it up nicely, and is worth plastering on every freedom-lover’s site on the web:

“Anarchy” is an expression of social behavior that reflects the individualized nature of life. Only as living beings are free to pursue their particular interests in the unique circumstances in which they find themselves, can conditions for the well-being of all be attained. Anarchy presumes decentralized and cooperative systems that serve the mutual interests of the individuals comprising them, without the systems ever becoming their own reasons for being. It is this thinking, and the practices that result therefrom, that is alone responsible for whatever peace and order exists in society.

Terrific stuff, eh? We act in harmony with this wonderful system so much of our lives, yet even we anarchists, we intellectually-minded libertarians, often overlook or forget its simplicity, scope, and unalterable truth.

After discovering that article, I was feeling quite good. Imagine my surprise when the day got even better.

For those of you who’ve been regulars to my personal web site, friends of mine at the Liberty Round Table, or conversed with me at The Claire Files or LibertyForum [both no longer extant as such], you know that I had been having difficulty dealing with my self-imposed work and personal demands. One thing I was considering is what form, if any, my future activism should take. As I said in a temporary farewell message, I was as close to burnout as I’d ever been, and quite surprised by that. It seemed that no matter what I did, no matter how good I made Freedom News Daily, how much I wrote about the need for individuals to find their own way to “do freedom” in the way that works best for themselves, or helped promote others’ great work, it was never enough. Why couldn’t the cats, er, not herd themselves—I’m not that deluded, nor would I want that—but simply just go do it: do their own freedom without waiting for or worrying about others? Why do so many of us contrary, individualistic, stubborn libertarian types seem to be waiting for The Magic Bullet Solution to Winning Freedom Now and Forever?

My friend Richard Rieben offers some valuable insights to that, as I commented prior to my walkabout in the essay Individual and Group: A Perpetual Tug of War?. One of the most important points he makes is that any group runs counter to the interests of its individuals—simply by virtue of the nature of individuals and groups. One need look no further than the national Libertarian Party to see how trying to herd individuals to greater freedom has brought more failure than success to the freedom movement. Yet in many pro-freedom circles, especially think tanks, the focus is on “public policy”—essentially groups butting heads over how much freedom individuals ought to have, or need to have. So—back to that surprise at last—I was taken aback by the title of the essay I saw by FEE president Richard Ebeling: There is no Central Plan for Winning Liberty.

Indeed.

Ebeling clearly presents why such a thing could never work, and discusses how each individual can choose a course that is most effective for himself with respect to advancing liberty. Not surprising information or ideas, but terrific to see coming from a respected institute nonetheless. “No Magic Bullet Solution” and “Anarchy Works!” (as I think of these two essays) fell into my mind, which was refreshed from my time away and ready to tackle some challenges anew. But now I don’t need to tackle a couple. Oh, I’m sure I will in some form or other, but it’s nice to know—again—that my thoughts are not way out from others’ in the freedom movement. It may be irrational of me, but those two essays renewed my hopes quite strongly.

My walkabout was an intensely solitary time, despite the near-constant presence of my traveling companion. That person—one of the very best friends I’ve had (and could ever hope to have) in my life—was on a similar mission, and in part because of that we were able to be together without intruding into each other’s space. Our interactions were the epitome of a truly voluntary relationship; we worked out arrangements that suited each of us when necessary or desired by us, and left each other alone otherwise. Simple; easy; and gloriously effective. One of the unexpected joys of the journey were the vistas opened up to me by my friend’s eclectic musical tastes. I smile every time I think of a pirate plundering the grain co-ops “on Regina’s mighty shores”, or reflect on an unusually insightful lyric about relationships wound around a catchy rock melody. I’ve long been encouraging individuals to do freedom. To that I add, with the reverberation of Captain Tractor’s exuberant refrain prancing in my mind: free yourself!

Do it your way.

Do freedom. Free yourself.

I have not been avoiding making note of H. Ben’s death several days ago ... rather, I’ve been quiet because I haven’t quite known what to say. Today, his family is hosting a memorial celebration of his life; and while I would like to attend in person with his many other friends, this will need to do.

[Whisk me straight to the list!]

Heh. This place began not as a blog, but as a place for interested readers to find all the essays I’d written, as they were scattered across the web—and more importantly, as some of the sites began disappearing. I was making decent progress at that task when the blogging bug bit me. The original goal was quickly overshadowed by the fun and value of less formal, more frequent writing. Then, when we switched from our first blogging platform to this one, most of those old essays were left behind, and then deleted by me since they were no longer easy to find in the new structure. I’d always meant to put them back ... but in my usual too-busy, distracted fashion, thinking about it didn’t lead to doing it. Until now.

I make no promises as to how frequently I will add essays to this site, but I will try to remember to do so at least monthly. (A point in favor of advancing this project is that it is a useful avoidance behavior for other projects.) As I add material, I will place the links here, but probably will not announce each addition in the blog area of this warren. Thus, a bookmark might be a good idea if you want to track my progress (or lack thereof).

Comments are not open on this page, nor on any of the essays—which is not to say that I am uninterested in substantive feedback or discussion. I am! Given the age of these works, a better solution for this seems to me to be inviting anyone interested to begin a discussion with a post on their web site; include a link to the essay so that I am likely to see it. Can’t promise that I’ll respond to every such thread, but as I am interested in responses to my ideas and expansions/improvements of them, I will read with interest.

And now, without further ado, the essay list:
    I’m Only Interested in Freedom
    No Safe Seat at the Feast
    Do It Your Way
    Drop Out to Tune In
    Psychological Marginalization
    Balance of Power: Personal Power
    Where Are the Sons of Boromir?
    Intellectual Property: Rights in Conflict? (an FMN spotlight piece)
    Sunni’s Silly List of Personal Stuff
    Re-Enter the Refuseniks
    So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Well, I survived the trip. Actually, it was much better than that bare statement would suggest, in most respects.

A while back, Pint of Stout invited individuals to consider a question, and to share an answer to it. As his question was a neat bull’s-eye for me—something I have thought long and hard, and variously about for decades—I hereby accept his invitation and offer my ramblings to accompany his.

The least I can do is be considerate and put it behind the curtain so y’all aren’t unwittingly exposed to my nutty ravings.

With credit (or blame, if you prefer) to MAL for the inspiration, as well as the number one reason.

Not exactly sure what got it working, but after a lot of downloading yesterday and two restarts today, the second hard drive was recognized and I am now copying over many gigs of data. Wish I knew what happened, but I’ll take the success even without the knowledge/understanding. More to come tomorrow ... right now I have Swedish meatballs cooking.

Yep, you guessed it: I attempted to upgrade my Linux OS yet again. That required more maneuvering than I’d anticipated, but I finally got all the preliminary steps completed, and slipped the install disc into my machine. Actually, I tried three discs—each of them sent to me from the Ubuntu Overlords (I think the real name is Canonical)—and failed with all three.

No matter what option I choose from the initial menu, after the "kernel active" message appears in white text, the screen goes blank; then, after a few seconds, the disc stops spinning. And nothing else happens. I had thought this was happening because the discs weren’t set up to handle my nice wide screen monitor; but today I plugged in an old monitor and got the same result.

I can’t download what I’d need to burn my own disc because it exceeds our satlink provider’s niggardly “fair access policy” limit. Exceeding that slows one’s connection to under dialup speed for 24 hours.

I really, really want to have a newer Kubuntu install on my system before I leave ... but I am completely out of ideas as to why I cannot get any of their discs to work in my machine. (Well, I know why the PC one didn’t work—I have a 64-bit machine. But neither of the 64-bit install discs work.) One more try and then I’m going to hit the bottle.