Reading Walden on the Strand thinking of Skynet

[00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the podcast. Present your vaccine passport. Enter your social credit score and be sure you have enough remaining carbon credits to enjoy today's show. Your garden is the resistance.

[00:00:26] PBM family coming to you from the Strand. Week of relaxation and reset. Well, as much as someone like me and a family like mine can relax. Plenty of time for reset though. You know, this is the first piece of recorded content I've made since Friday, Thursday? Maybe Thursday. Members only podcast.

[00:00:54] I don't even know if I did a show Friday to be honest. It was rough. Oh, I did do a Friday show, I think. It's a really bad thing to let me alone for so long. I'm really disappointed in you all. To leave me alone for so long with Henry David Thoreau and Sand and Surf and Sun.

[00:01:21] Yeah, I mean, I'm not even sure what you're going to get when I come back. I have no clue. But it ain't going to be the same. I can tell you that. It'll never be the same. I don't know how many of you have read through Walden. I'm a very picky reader, man. I've learned this over the years. You know, there are books that I buy that I buy because they're cheap and good. Well, good in the sense that other people have told me they're good.

[00:01:49] Or good in the sense that I read the back and it looks like, oh, this could be good. And then there are very few books that I buy that go into a very small pile of what I'm going to actually read. It doesn't mean I don't touch the other books. There's a priority list. And, you know, Henry David Thoreau just always spoke my language, man. Always. And reading Walden is dangerous.

[00:02:20] I think the thing that you should know Thoreau for the most is not the massive medley lives of quiet desperation. Though it is true. And it was kind of his, what he was running from, it seems like. I don't know. I haven't read a ton of them. But it seems like biographically speaking. But it does seem like that's what he was intent on running from. Right?

[00:02:47] Was this life of really kind of like commitment. You know what I mean? Like he was not looking for commitment. Not, I don't mean in the relationship sense. I'm sure if he had a lady tag along with him. And he may have. I don't know the whole guy's story. I don't have to be a historian to talk about him. You know what I mean? But in his writing you can very clearly pull that from it.

[00:03:13] And what's important for the average person, I think, is to understand that Thoreau is a dangerous author. He's a dangerous author. He's the type of guy that you read and might change your whole outlook on life. You know, if you are a man living in quiet desperation or a woman. He's, when you read that kind of an author and you realize like, oh God. I might just up and sell the house and buy the farm.

[00:03:41] And boy, you know, he's that kind of guy. And reading him yesterday. I mean, just reading through where I lived and how I lived. I think the chat, there was called in Walden's. There's so much in there, man. There's so much in there. And there's a lot of stuff that kind of course corrects. You know what I mean? Course corrects.

[00:04:07] I will tell you that we've been, and I've seen the news. Don't get me wrong. You know, I've seen like glimpses of the news. But I'd rather not talk about war at large. I don't know really much about the No Kings rallies. I don't know how they turned out. I know the beach here or up north in Virginia was shut down because of all the chaos.

[00:04:32] Now, I don't know how much of that was righteous crusading against Trump or how much of that was summertime shopping and burning for the fun of it. For sport. For the sport. Let's call it sport. You know, I guess some headlines were made and things like that. I don't know. I don't really know.

[00:04:54] So I would like to get more into this story about this MAGA conservative assassin in the assassination league that they're bringing to light or attempting to make exist. Right? Like wishing this conservative assassination group out of Minnesota to exist or a network to exist across the country. Like please God in heaven, let this be real. It feels like the media wants it.

[00:05:21] You can almost like feed, like it's not implicit in what I've read. But in the way that it's worded, it feels like the media is dying for it. You know what I mean? Like wouldn't it be wonderful if we could link political killings to Donald Trump? That would be so wonderful. And it really does, you know, is what it is. But it's bleak. You know what I mean? It's a bleak existence. To dance with the, I don't know. What is it? You know what I mean?

[00:05:49] The dance with the media and all that. Even just the goings on. The day-to-day goings on is bleak. The day-to-day goings on in other people's lives. Like who else? What else? What's happening? Why is it happening? That's nothing to do with you. Last night my wife and I were watching the last game of the Stanley Cup. Sorry, Toolman Tim. But we were watching the last game of the Stanley Cup.

[00:06:20] And I don't know why. I've heard the Star Spangled Banner a million times. You know it. But when I heard the land of the free and the home of the brave, I just went on overdrive. I don't know. Something weird. It was just like, yeah, the land of the free and the home of the brave. What does that mean anymore? Right? And I started thinking, you know, in this whole self-reliance and independence sort of mentality.

[00:06:49] Because I would say the guiding principle going forward for PBN really is the individual effort. I mean, that's really what it is. Like, if you're here and you like to hang out on the fringe and listen and laugh and do whatever it is you like to do, that's fine. But if you're really going to take advantage of what we do here at PBN,

[00:07:14] I would say that you really have to commit to you and your effort. You have to understand that's what it is. And it's not just what prepping for disaster is. It's what a life worth living is. It's a reoccurring theme in my daily life. And in your daily life. Right? There's a reoccurring theme in life. And it is, oh, I'd rather not give any more.

[00:07:45] And that kind of decides how the day will go. In a lot of cases. Not just how the day will go. How the interaction will go. How the job will go. How the relationship will go. How the business deal will go. Right? The path back to stability. You can have a guide. You can have several guides. You can have books. You can have how-tos and DIYs and that kind of stuff.

[00:08:14] You can have YouTube channels full of information. 5,000 podcasts. A membership website to go to. But at the end of the day. It's you that's got to go there. It's you that's got to do it. You know? This is not a money thing either, by the way. Trust me. This is not a thing about money. This is a thing about effort. It's about an individual. And effort. It's about looking at your life.

[00:08:44] And sometimes, you've got to understand, like, effort is a thing. And willpower are things that have to be trained. They're things that have to be trained. It's not just because James gets up and says, give more effort. Individually. To make your life better. That you're going to be able to do it. Right? These are things that have to be trained. That's why I always talk about fitness. My wife's downstairs working out right now. On vacation. It's 630 in the morning or some crazy shit like that.

[00:09:14] It's willpower. You know what I mean? And that's what it takes. And the reason for the focus on the individual is because the individuals make up the whole. We have a choice here in this country. It's shopping sprees and burn events all summer long. Or the land of the free and the home of the brave.

[00:09:41] And the land of the free and the home of the brave, you know, there's a lot in that too. I think to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, we have to work our way around this bloated and disgusting tax system in the United States. And I'm not no expert on that, but we probably need to get an expert on that on the show. Because that's the only way we get to be the land of the free again. We can't be the land of the free if they own your home when you don't pay your taxes.

[00:10:10] We can't be the land of the free if they own your car if you don't pay the taxes. We can't be the land of the free if they own you. Right? It's impossible. So the tax system has got to go or it's got to be much, much less. Especially in terms of ownership. Right? We can't be the land of the free or the home of the brave if we don't do anything brave.

[00:10:40] I'm walking. We're in like perfect walking distance to go to Starbucks and hang with my dogs on the walk. And it's a beautiful little walk. You know what I mean? It's a wonderful little walk. But I was thinking about AI because I'm always thinking about AI and cybernetics and humanity's future.

[00:11:08] And I started wondering, you know, like a dull existence may very well create a situation where it's not that AI takes over. It's just that we lose all the beauty of what it is to be human. And it just, you know, like T.S. Eliot says, the world ends in a whimper. You say a whimper or a whisper? I mean, if you don't think that can happen, that can happen.

[00:11:37] When my family and I are sitting here in the vacation house and there's people scrolling, we're all four sitting here looking at our screens. You know, don't think we're immune to it just because I do this podcast. I look around the room and I'm like, oof, this is how it happens. Right? This is the beginning stages of how humanity disappears. Not through great wars or great conquests, but just from... Eh.

[00:12:03] We stopped really believing in what made it wonderful to be human. And we fell into the trap of what it is to be cybernetic, consistently connected. Uh... You know, eternally titillated. Uploaded. Reloaded. Reloaded. And all this dissolves.

[00:12:30] But what we do here at PBN is the antithesis of it all. It's the antithesis of everything. Because self-reliance and independence is the antithesis of almost every problem there is out there. It really is at the end of the day. I've stumbled into this seat. Whether you know it or not. It's madness. But it really is. Just having stumbled into this seat.

[00:12:59] And I have to figure out, you know, what's the best way to wing it. So, all that said, it's about a lot more than disaster preparedness here at PBN. It's been that way for years. Right? Um... But I have a feeling it's gonna... It's gonna keep in that direction. I don't know what that means to you.

[00:13:29] All I wanna be to you is a little conduit and a little motivation so that each and every day you can get a little better. Get a little further down on your journey. Right? Your path. Back to stability. Whatever that... Or maybe back to humanity. I don't know. We're gonna enjoy ourselves today and tomorrow and return. You'll probably hear a lot of me up front. Because I haven't been able to do what I do. And I like it.

[00:13:59] But I don't know if it'll be the same old thing. It'll probably be a little different. There may be some big changes. This is what happens when you leave me alone for a week. It's bad. It's a bad plan. Man. I'm a change kind of guy. You know what I mean? But I know you guys will hang with me. You always have all these years. I appreciate many of you out there.

[00:14:25] What I have to be most careful of, I think, and what I need your guys' help with is falling into the trap of... You know, if we're conducting ourselves the way that everyone's conducting themselves here at PBN, then we can't be the self-reliance and independence hub. We can't be the path back to stability because we're doing everything everyone else is doing. And we just have to be careful of that. I have to be careful of that.

[00:14:57] Enjoy your day, folks. Just peruse the member website. Especially if you're a member. You know? There's tons of great information over there just for you. I did see somebody took the foraging class over the weekend. Good look, man. You know who you are out there. I'm glad you enjoyed that. It's about that time. I mean, June, end of June. You can find a lot of goodies out. Happening now. Elderberry to harvest.

[00:15:27] Blackberry to eat on while you're out. A lot of greens and stuff. A lot of tree foraging items. Hickory nuts are falling. That kind of thing. It's a... If you want to really hit the sort of connect the wires between humanity, I mean, it all happens in the woods. If you've read my book, hopefully you've read the book. Poems from Men. And there's one... One poem in particular in there that everyone needs to read. Not just men. It's really for the mass.

[00:15:56] And it is a human-driven poem. It's all about... It's called... They Simply Stand. And it's about a conversation... A fictitious conversation I had with some trees. On a really run... A really tough run. The moment was so crazy because I just... I ran up this great big hill. And I was dying. And I got to the top and I looked up and...

[00:16:23] You know that feeling like when you don't think people are looking at you and then you turn around and everybody's looking at you? And you're like, whoa! I had that exact moment with all the trees around me. It was like I got up to the hill. I'm panting. I'm breathing heavy. I'm all red in the face. And then I turned around and all these looming trees seemed to be staring down at me. And from that moment on I started creating that poem in my head about what would that look like?

[00:16:54] Right? What would the great monoliths that simply stand and watch humanity have to say about us? That's a good one. Poems for Men. Get the book. Amazon.com I'll talk to you guys later. Enjoy the day. I'm going to enjoy mine for sure.