Doing woodworking when I can get the time - there’s nothing like a spinning chunk of wood or whirring bandsaw blade to narrow your thoughts down to just one topic. I have a hard time quieting my mind but that works pretty well. Probably about as close to zen as I get.

Creative stuff, writing/editing a solarpunk TTRPG campaign guide when my mind is in the right place, doing the art for it with a podcast on in the background when it isn’t and I want to be distracted. Chipping away at these projects feels good. I can end the day thinking about what I got done and planning next steps.

A bit of volunteering gets me out and into the company of folks I get along with.

Listen/watch some early Doug Stanhope :)

• Gardening. I’ve had no gardening land until yesterday so I have filled my terrace with pots and bags of soil. Very proud of my (admittedly shitty) beans and tomatoes. I’ve made raised beds out of rubble in my backyard. A friend has offered me to use some of her land, so that will be next to plant.

• Cat. I was really awfully depressed so I adopted a sickly kitten to have someone else to care for. It helps. The cat doesn’t give a shit about world politics. It’s now growing more healthy and becoming too powerful for my furniture. When I wallow in bad moods it will let me know without delay. It’s currently sitting on my lap making sure I don’t get too much screen time.

• Community. The local community is poor, rural and divided into (very conservative) locals and foreigners (who come here to live in more natural settings than where they come from). Since I’ve turn woefully old I feel like I am now the adult in the room, so I try to work on bringing people together, and a few others are doing the same. That’s how we fight the fascists and xenophobes who seem to be everywhere these days. There was a small group of at least four different nationalities banging pots for Gaza in our tiny town yesterday. When it feels that there is not enough community I will come up with some way to create it through common activities. Two or three people meeting and doing something together is a success!

• Bread. I bake sourdough bread because the local bread sucks. Some people buy it from me and enjoy it very much, and that makes me happy.

That said I am often nearly succumbing to all the doom out there. There have been days in the last few months when I was really not wanting to live anymore. I then return to one of the points above and carry on, and the doom passes. I’ll keep doing that, sometimes out of spite, till I’m booted out of this place or this life.

All of the points I wrote down connect with caring for human and non-human life (even the sourdough is a friend!). One more point I should add is ceremony/prayer, which sounds stupid to the average anarchist/atheist, but it has become important to me and connects me to ancestors and landscape. The land is alive and my work is to participate in caring for the land and its inhabitants - a lot of that philosophy is borrowed from native and indigenous people. I’m not caring for others because some god tells me to, but because being a good neighbor to people, plants and animals makes everyone involved more happy.

All I do is purposefully small. No big ambitions that would eat me (been there, done that). Just my tiny self doing my best. Plans and ideas don’t have to be - shouldn’t be - big and sparkling.

Playing with my dogs.

Cuddling.

I’ve been reconnecting with old friends, and keeping together with current friends through board games and such. One highlight was Codenames, lots of laughs and stuff. I highly recommend it for its collaborative nature that’s more focused on language interpretation than skill like in chess.

Looking at nature in our garden, helping my other half grow vegetables and herbs (not enough to ever be self-sufficient, but it feels nice to eat the results). Trying generate as much solar power as possible (which again, isn’t enough to be off-grid, but enough for an emergency). Watching our rabbits grow and interact with each other ❤️ Finding interesting people on the fediverse, and trying to get other people to try it (which isn’t very effective at the moment!)

Edit: We are watching Clarksons’ Farm, which is entertaining, but also raises important points about our food system.

Hanging out with my kids and playing vidya gaem. I may start a new ttrpg game soon, a couple of my friends are feeling the itch and I’ve got some ideas.

Kids are the best tho

I am not capable of feeling joy anymore.

James Hoffmann reviewing a coffee maker previously owned by David Lynch. It’s not good. The coffee maker, that is. The video is delightful.

Picking produce from my garden, and cooking meals for my family, are the only things that bring me joy these days. My therapist runs a craft group, it doesn’t bring joy but it is helping with a sense of community.

Acknowledging that suffering is just as important as pleasure in the human condition, I’ve come to a peace with suffering. It’s just our turn in time. Oddly enough, facing the suffering head on with acceptance that the world has balance, has made a lot of room for joys in my small, daily life.

I don’t know when the last day with my family will be, and so, it is easy to appreciate our time today, basically.

I have a few places where I can find joy in my life.

From nature, I find happiness from the trails I walk to the garden of veggies and plants that I grow.

For creativity, I have been learning some coding and building operating systems for my laptop and raspberry pi home server.

Socially, I got really lucky last year and met someone who has been amazing to me. She’s my mycelium and through her I’ve been meeting all these new interesting people who I’ve been able to relate and connect with. People who have unique and very open personalities that aren’t solely based on work or religion.

What brings you joy?

The suffering of the people I hate or despise.

The “consume media” mindset is a trap, IME.

People who spend hours a day consuming media aren’t happy people usually.

I downloaded the first season of Silicon Valley the other day, so I’m enjoying that.