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People are very generous about reminding me of my useless stupidity. Some are able to see deep inside my mind and spirit to illuminate things I didn’t know were in there. Their super-vision exceeds that of the mightiest super-heroic. Having neither the vision to see the invisible nor the ability to define commonly held beliefs such as freedom, I try, I truly do, to avoid overstepping into the terrain of immutable assertion where true worthies tread. Way I personally see it, let them wade the boggy muskeg and think by doing so a sand beach is thereby being created.

Last few times I drifted into simple, some might say pointless in these troubled whatevers, tales of frog, fish, and mud. Some instinct, I feel, led me to revisit the nature of experience gained direct, life and death direct, hunting frogs or catching fish while facing muddy nature. Didn’t make much mention of crafty leeches sneaking in for a meal of leg blood, deer flies desiring chunks of scalp, or the rarely absent biting fly or skeeter. All those and more were there at every turn pursuing the bike rider or preying as he quietly watched for a twitch of pencil bobber. In the real, actual world there are multiple sides; I stalk fish and amphibians while other critters do the same to me. That’s nature, raw, messy, not always cooperative or human friendly.

Nature is not the pristine, remote, inviting, unpeopled beach so often portrayed. Watch for it and see how time on time viewers are given glory scenes sadly lacking in reality. See the happy vacationers frolic in gentle ocean rollers, but here’s the thing. Get smacked by a 150 pound sack of sand or be the sack hammered onto hard-packed shore. Sitting before a screen or reading a sales-pitch promo gives fluff minus substance. Fake nature doesn’t want her cash paying children to be affrighted by possible danger. If it’s you and not a bag of sand being tossed in a river rapids how long before you’re battered senseless? But no fear. It’s illusion, or fake nature, that matters most to satisfy the visitor-guest-adventurer in the safe environment of the veranda bar where the vacationer’s account is on access.

Is my useless view too cynical, yes – no? I have no answer beyond a lingering suspicion that in too many ways people have been moved from natural to virtual less and less cognizant of things in the real world. Of course I’m wrong to say that, but on the other hand have you heard a clean energy plan for replacing gas taxes that currently fund so much road, bridge and highway? Should EV fueling be taxed as the replacement road revenue source? Difficult to have the EV world’s benefits on bad roads poorly maintained. How soon will we have workable EV cement or asphalt delivery vehicles? How reliable the EV bus battery on a -10 night? What happens to EV efficiency heating a vehicle interior and defrosting in winter or cooling in summer? Among current systems of steering and braking which might survive? What happens to replaced engine and transmission specialists? Do they join the line of code writing coal miners? I am not against new applications to point out there’s a long-long way to go before one system replaces another.

Another of my useless thoughts flutters around the notion that promoting recycling contributes to throw-away behavior. We recycle that, we say, having no idea how difficult and itself wasteful that may be. We recycle aluminum. Yeah! Where is the nearest smelter and within how many miles of it do you wish to live? Stores and consumers disliked deposit bottles. Good reason, but the increased waste stream there plus fast food disposables, portion control packets and etc. are a larger concern even if we don’t see or are inconvenienced by it as much as we were by returnable bottles. Visit a number of eateries and you may find near identical meal menu items telling us cooks have become re-heaters of pre-prepared entrées. Restaurant economics in reducing cooks is known. Frankly, the system seems to work, but, unseen, is the waste stream resulting from –pre-prepared replacing cooks and cooking. (Look especially at desert carts featuring identical New York Cheesecakes by way of Phoenix. or LA.)

I can tell you, useless ideas free thinking to be outside the box, much touted until someone does not like what’s out there. Outside the box craziness counts when the crazy meets standards of acceptability of notion. How crazy is that? Not at all or amazingly, depending on which when it’s slanted. Step wrong-way outside the box with some and they’ll get you so you won’t know what hit you. They may even threaten legal action, though the deeply religious will often let you go with a prayer for your soul.

On that topic (souls) I must pause. Honest Engine, I’m not sure I have one or if I do showed its nature by using Engine. I’ve met a few I’d swear were empty in the soul area, but on the odd chance I have one think its purposeful slant is to annoy. In my younger years many a person said how they pitied my poor mother. I disagreed thinking she was fortunate having me around to add a level of colorful character just not found in Quaker Oat or Cream of Wheat land. Nope, I was the joy of an otherwise dull life by insisting on breakfast of rye toast and Earl Grey, at fifteen my notion of (keep your nasty Wheaties) champion fare. So IF I’ve a soul I expect but a few things. First it would not have the same imprints as others. Second, its elemental, personal and best left unmolested. As a practical thing, my soul sees (or distorts) things differently than others. Useful? Might be. That depends on how open I am to others (could be you) telling me “Look again.” I can do that. I hope others will too, because that’s where much of life’s purpose is comprehended.

I can’t make an angry person happy. I can resist being infected.