Being human is just constant admin. Register this, fill out that, contact the business or person. I long to just exist outside of all of the noise. Put my shoes on and just walk the fields and Downs. Survey the ocean and stand in the salty breeze. Lay in a meadow and splash in a stream. Howl in the moonlight and weep against a tree. Make friends with a badger. Form an alliance with the birds. Go to war against the snakes. Create a new religion with the dirt folk. Lose my mind and smile at the sun as I fly away to a lost continent. Transubstantiate into a being of pure energy and beam myself throughout the cosmos. Drift past the observable universe and discover a new place where matter and physics no longer exist. Join with the universe and become god. Instead I have to do my stupid little emails.
Discussion
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@TheBreadmonkey Go to war only with human metaphorical snakes.
@TheBreadmonkey
You've caused me to wonder, Ben, as I arose to a sense of wonder, if this cosmic post of yours could have been an email.
Thank YOU for the transcendental experience!
@TheBreadmonkey you can totally do that. Just leave the admin to your butler, duh.
@TheBreadmonkey ✊ 🙏 🕯️🔥
Agreed!!!!!
What say you we make that world while doing what must be done in this shitty one to survive???
A loved one used to say (quote someone else) Dream big dreams, then put your overalls on.
What steps might we take to make that world and compost this one?
🌲🌳🍄🌻🌞
Hear me out. It's going to sound a bit radical. But I really believe it will work. If you give me one million pounds, I think everything just might be OK. I will focus all of my time and attention on saving humanity. And I will win.
@TheBreadmonkey i'm sorry, i got serious on your playful post. I just really want that world, that life. When i see a like dream, i lose perspective and sense.
Play on!
@BrambleBearSnoring
No problem at all
😊❤️🙌
@TheBreadmonkey @lednaBM That's pretty much how I feel too.
@TheBreadmonkey you make it sound quute heavenly I would settle for less makework
@TheBreadmonkey
I did some tax-related thing and paid rent, and by golly is this all fake or what. let me commune with the mushrooms. let me be enlightened by the blackbirds. let me be a friend to the jackdaws.
@TheBreadmonkey My son, aged 3, as he went into the garden and wanting to tell us "I may be some time"
> I'm just going to do my email
😬🙄🤦
@TheBreadmonkey I get this fix what what I call "day hangs." I head out into good sized park for the afternoon, and pick the most remote spot I can find. I string up a hammock, and just hang out for 3-4 hours. I nap, read, might have a beer, play with sticks, listen to birds, and just enjoy the forest and solitude for awhile. It's a great mini recharge. BTW - today is my first day on Mastodon. Already love it, and don't want to go back to the bickering on Reddit :)
Welcome! That sounds great. Fedi is basically a day hang but all of the time. 😊🙌 
@TheBreadmonkey @losclintos this is 100% true
@TheBreadmonkey @losclintos also welcome! Please note that instead of bickering, we solve our differences by going to a public venue and slapping each other in the face with a large trout. It's very civilised, mainly because we are very careful to wait our turn to trout slap. Please acquire your regulation trout without delay.
@http_error_418 @TheBreadmonkey @losclintos This not my experience of the Fediverse when it comes to Linux arguments; and thats a discourse that definitely needs some trout to the kisser.
@davidbcohen @http_error_418 @losclintos
Ah yes I thought it might be a bit early to mention the Linux Wars. Or the Instance Wars. Or the CW wars. Or the AltText Wars.
@TheBreadmonkey @http_error_418 @losclintos And you haven’t even got to the “You didn’t condemn AI” or “Promote something commercial” lynch mobs
@TheBreadmonkey you should read Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. poetry helps connect me with the world.
Thanks! 😊 Bookmarked.
@TheBreadmonkey There’s only one plane of existence and it’s emails.
@TheBreadmonkey the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I used to think like you, but now my view is changed. It's really about having enough self-autonomy, and self-sufficiency, such that you're not under the thumb of any narcissists. This is about as close to true freedom as most people can hope to get, despite all the tedious problems which you rightly lament.
I appreciate this perspective, but it makes some assumptions about my life and responsibilities. I must continue to toil as I am for the moment as have people who rely on me. However I'm working on change. But in the meanwhile I'll do my silly flights of fancy because it relieves the stress a bit. 😊
@TheBreadmonkey I have had too many days like that recently. It's all a bit much, isn't it?
It is rather. Things are not ideal. Power to you. I get through it by posting incessant nonsense on here. Perhaps you could do the same. And maybe between us we'll fix the world. Beaming you all the very best, friend. 👊
@TheBreadmonkey Back at ya! Mastodon is my favourite silly place on the web these days. Thanks for being part of it. 🫶
I heartily with all that.
EXCEPT for "Go to war against the snakes."
Come on dude, snake are very cool, make friends with them too!!!!!!
( also I hope that was human written...)
That is a great question ROBERT SMITH. Let me help you with that. You've made a fantastic start to this LETTER TO CLIENT but let's just make a few minor adjustments. But first, would you like to see a picture of the Pope on a skateboard?
Yes!!! I luv me sum Pope on a skateboard!!!!!!!
@TheBreadmonkey I vibe with this but for one thing.
Act in aggression against the fanged noodles, who intend you no harm, and you will see me on their front when the battle comes.
@TheBreadmonkey @the_etrain That's the magic of writing. I've done those things with you, too.
Now, don't forget to check your spam folder for important messages. Then, wash the dishes, fer Chrissakes!
@TheBreadmonkey This is exactly why Earth's Uplift Program keeps stalling. The way things are going, whales, dolphins, parrots, and octopuses will be uplifted before we do.
@TheBreadmonkey It's maddening. I'm caretaking for parents and a disabled sister, so I'm handling a lot of that for three households (and a business). If I had the money, I would hire a part time personal assistant to do all the driving and paperwork.
Also, it's basically impossible to play Phone Tag with contractors and insurers when you have a job that has a lot of meetings. I literally can't answer the phone for 70% of business hours, creating a self-sustaining game of endless missed calls.
I'm sorry. That sounds really tough. Where do you live (general country / area, not your address)?
@TheBreadmonkey New England. The silver lining is that everyone and everything involved, including my house, is literally along a two mile stretch of a neighborhood. So at least it's all short trips instead of sitting in traffic.
Ah I was going to ask if you've looked at online support groups or any eligible additional help that might be available. In the UK there are often initiatives, benefits or volunteers that you can look into but we're quite built up and I think New England is quite spaced out? I'm sure you have already thought of that, but occasionally someone will suggest something to me I hadn't considered and it turns out to be useful. Power to you anyway. I hope all of the good things for you and yours. 😊❤️
@TheBreadmonkey Oh, thanks. I go to regular therapy type stuff, and I managed to operationalize and put boundaries on everything to preserve my sanity. I spent a year sort of panicking and falling apart over it, but it all seems very doable now. I just have to keep my own ducks in a row, mealprep on Sunday, eat and exercise where I can squeeze it in, and put my foot down when I need a break.
@TheBreadmonkey Get outta my head, bruh!
@TheBreadmonkey Joke would be on you. The dirt folk have a signup form and a long list of rules they want to gate keep religious compliance. You’d be back to square one, as well as being covered in soil.
@TheBreadmonkey I take it you enjoyed Avatar.
Haven't seen it! Have I just imagined the entire plot of Avatar?!!? Someone needs to put me in touch with James Cameron and Hollywood in general.
I
AM
AVAILABLE!
I'll work for half of what other writers get. What must that be - two million pounds a script? I'm out here just doing this for free! It's literally just falling out of me. I will write avatar 4. Avatar 4: Electric Boogaloo.
@TheBreadmonkey
Hi.
I'm a snakesperson for the spokes... I mean a spokesperson for the snakes.
They said, "we're just doing what we do, man, what's with the downer?"
@TheBreadmonkey Probably good to take break and do all this, man. You reminded me I'm supposed to do this as well now.
Leave the snakes out of it! They didn't do anything wrong. They're just who they are.
Poor ol' snakes. 💕🐍
@TheBreadmonkey you can traveling more to escape the mundane
@TheBreadmonkey This is what AI _should_ be doing. Not taking away our jobs.
@TheBreadmonkey 😂😂🏆 magnificent.
to have a properly exercised imagination is to have everything.
@TheBreadmonkey yes, "off the grid" .... in all dimensions ;)
@TheBreadmonkey This might be your best work. Damn. You are a treasure, Ben. You help ground us when our worries threaten to launch us into the sun. I was already in the trebuchet seat.
@TheBreadmonkey In all seriousness you can capture the feeling of at least half of this by simply re-reading The Wind
In the Willow by Kenneth Graham (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27805)
Mr Badger is scary at first but very kind. Say hello for me.
Toot toot!
@chris @TheBreadmonkey Oh! I'd forgotten "The Wind in The Willows." I was thinking Ben wanted to make friends with an actual badger, which.. seems like a plan for self-harm.
Oh no I definitely do
I will raise a badger army the likes of which this world has never seen
@TheBreadmonkey Weirdly I just finished the first draft of a short story that features not one but more of these elements, including befriending a salty badger 🦡 Once edited and if I find a home for it, I'll send it on...
We are very much connected. And might start finishing each others.....
@TheBreadmonkey if you formatted this differently it'd be a poem... well, it's already a poem, but it would be more readily readable as one
I was thinking that too!!!!
A prose poem as it is.
Imagine too an illustrated story, picture book for frazzled adults.
@BrambleBearSnoring @sarble @TheBreadmonkey @Remittancegirl y'know, artists might actually be the people who make that choice, finances be damned.
@travisfw Yes indeed. It's not that one cannot make this choice. It's that one chooses not to make it for worldy, practical reasons. Which is fine, and understandable. But it is always worth remembering that, if you are willing to put up with living in a seriously hand-to-mouth fashion, it is possible to make this choice. And some people have, and do. And society might disdain them for it. But perhaps they're happier - if poorer - for it.
I *laugh* in the face of structure
I have excellent news for you.
You can absolutely be that person and do all the things you've listed. But it has a cost, usually the price of financial security. But that doesn't mean it isn't a choice you should contemplate.
It is also a lot of effort - just a very different kind of effort than the bureaucratic tasks you are currently expending effort on.
😊
I would very much like financial security. Even just a little. Even just a tiny crumb. The smallest of morsels.
@TheBreadmonkey Yeah, that's the awful faustian bargain - the pursuit of financial security isn't compatible with your other desires.
But... I don't know, for me it feels important to acknowledge that those crazy dreams ARE a choice one can make. It's certainly not going to be seen as a wise choice or a practical choice, but it IS a choice that could be made.
Then, when I'm answering the emails, I can treasure just that little smidgeon of agency.
I can almost imagine the first footed fish out of the sea, surveying its new territory, seeing all the beauty and freedom, and deciding to fence it in.
@uc @TheBreadmonkey Those imperialist fish stole the land from insects that were living here for millions of years. Decolonize land! Fish go back to the water!
@TheBreadmonkey You were doing fine until you said you'd put your shoes on.
@TheBreadmonkey
25% of my life writing books with puzzles in them
25% of my life designing and making treasures to win by solving puzzles in said books
50% doing all the things you just said. Roaming the land. Getting in adventures. Finding locations to hide said treasures.
It is going to be a bit of a slow process to get there, but its the path I am on.
I'm listening.....