Hey listed.to!!!

Very happy to be here. I'd like to introduce myself - I'm a 41 year old man living with a kickass husky in a shack near the pacific ocean. I've got severe and lifelong PTSD, among other challenges. I won't get into that right now, but I'll be at my keyboard trying to make sense of myself for a very long time. With this blog I'm going to explore a lot of the things that affect me personally; things like abuse, neglect, addiction and recovery. Homelessness, anti-capitalism, anarchism, technocracy. Psychedelic medicine and DIY mental health. Surfing. Oh and books, music, and video games. Please join me for the ride! : )

OK Boomer (or am I Gen X?)

I'm a relatively old guy, and I'm very concerned with where digital culture is headed. I'm one of the last generations to grow up pre-internet. I've got before and after mental snapshots that many folk don't. I remember playing outside as a kid with no way for my parents to reach me - no GPS enabled smartwatch, no cell phones. I remember the first time I played games like Super Mario Brothers, later Quake, and accessing the web on dialup for the first time. Now there are self-driving cars, remote controlled dildos, and data harvesting mega-corps pillaging the minds and hearts (and pockets) of billions of people worldwide, every single day!

On some levels it's become very dystopian. One of the first books that ever woke me up was 1984, I read it in the early 90's before everyone had a PC in their home. Now with smartphones, social media, the internet of things, ad trackers, mass surveillance tech, ISP sketchiness, the list goes on... Privacy is one of the last strongholds for us concerned with real psychological and social freedom. I think that's probably how most of us found apps like Standard Notes and places like Listed.to. Encryption, VPNs, open source apps, ad blockers, anonymity.... we need to stay vigilant. I've been a huge proponent of anti-social media for a long time.

Protecting our personal online privacy is like being on the run from an angry mob of coked up Wall Street brokers

It sucks to say it, but there are a lot of people out to get us these days. They may not be hiding in the bush with bats, or trying to hurt us physically, but they're definitely trying to drain us financially, emotionally, psychologically, and socially. This is evident every day, all around us. Detractors like to say that if you worry about your privacy, you must have something to hide. This is like saying you should wash your laundry in public, right? Does this make sense to anyone but those who say it? I believe this qualifies as DoubleThink.

I spent a good amount of the last 25 years on the road, living on the ocean, farming off-grid on tiny islands, or out of my mind in many other ways. It's weird that being afflicted with PTSD and addictions have given me insight into the human condition that can actually translate into what's going on at scale. I've got more street smarts than tech skills, but in the areas of personal survival and not wanting to be seen or found, I think what I've learned transfer very well. Here are a few things I like to keep in mind;

• like most underground movements, we need to hide in plain site when possible
• we need to stop rebelling against a corrupt system and instead build a more viable, sustainable and attractive alternative... that's how we win
• people with the best ideas don't talk endlessly about what they're up to, because they're busy doing it
• when you make one good enemy, you tend to make five good friends
• anything DIY cuts out a middle-man, and that's a good thing

Where I think it's going

• I think people are going to get traffic violations and criminal fines real-time (best case scenario)
• credit and criminal checks real-time (worst case scenario, think about renting a place or finding work)
• spiritual, political, social, economic affiliations... real-time (absolute dystopian chaos)
• all of this is already in place and scaling up
• my generation will see this happening.... future generations will grow up with it already instituted, and thus won't see it

I'd like to think people are gonna wake up...

• to the difference between good work and having a job
• to self-reliance and inter-dependence with other humans
• to recognizing abuse in all its' forms and practicing compassion, patience and...
• to direct action

Stay tuned for;

• my origin story, such as it is
• books worth reading
• why I think almost everyone has PTSD on some level (spoiler alert, we live in an abusive system)
• how meditation messes people up via spiritual bypass
• pictures of my awesome dog!

Thanks for reading, and see you soon!