_Fucking cat woke me up: I don't know what his problem is but he's gotta a habit of waking me up at 4 or 6 in the morning to feed him again and if his bowl's full, he'll want me to watch him eat. Or it's full and he just stares at me like an asshole. He meows at his food expecting me to figure out whatever's wrong with it. What do you see that I don't you four-legged freeloader?

Needless to say, the state of my head has not improved, I'm somewhere between tired and hungover without having touched a drop all week. Dammit. Where does this leave us? If I did some reflecting on the spiritual musings from last night, I'd say that the past makes for a good starting point that we have to remind ourselves of. Sometimes we outgrow what makes us nostalgic, other times we adapt it to fit our new position in life.

_There's a serenity to the desert: I've been to the Mojave, the Chihuahuan, and Sonoran deserts and they're strangely peaceful at the right time of day. I think it's that ability to see the horizon, it lends to a spiritual farsightedness not afforded to forest and city dwellers. Of course, I can't make apologies for the heat-or the drought. But in those few hours of the early morning, and if there's a windchill, it makes living in the southwest worthwhile despite the lack of opportunity here.

I think I can do myself a favor when I stop trying to bottle those visceral emotions of hope and longing. They can't be assigned words because doing so takes out the magic if that's the word. Instead I'll use them as a guide. An exercise in letting go like I was talking about last night. That, I feel, can be captured in writing.

So while I'm still talking about spiritual awareness, it felt better for me to sit down somewhere to do some writing; the MVD can wait. I didn't intend for it to pan out this way but while I lacked the skills necessary to follow through on my big ideas, I needed a platform to get something out in the world. Could've assumed another identity, used another account, but for some reason I used this one. Shoulda, coulda, woulda but here we are. Now it's become a platform for my tell-all.

It'll do your spirit no favors to think back on a past decision with the intent to correct it, hoping to alter the direction of your momentum. No, let's play the ball as it lies.

_I don't like working: No one does but it's a requirement in this day and age. Still haven't found something to replace my old job at the transfer station so now I'm just coasting by on part-time, making what I can with my freed schedule until I'm ready to go back to school. There's something I resent wholeheartedly about the 40 hour work week, really you're working ten hours a day if you factor in the time you spend getting ready for work, commuting, and the break and lunch you have to spend at your job-at the transfer station we got 30 minutes for lunch. And what's it for? Every year it gets harder to live, prices only increase while wages stagnate, big-tech companies threaten more of our independence, dignity, and privacy and they'll weasel their way through any loop hole.

I remember why I wanted to live off-grid in the first place. I wanted to get away from the dullness of modernity if it meant securing a little peace of mind. Really I just wanted enough money to get out of the game, live a go-lucky life where I'm free to create what I want and not have to answer to any higher-ups. But therein lies the problem. No one is trying to fix the problem that warrants those impulses for escapism, we're all looking for an out. I suppose that's the weakness in American society, that disconnection so we look towards throwing others under the bus if it means we can't be bothered.

Then look at the bigger picture and it seems everything is built on dehumanizing one another. Highways, suburbs, office buildings. It's a spiritual drought. So where in this world do we find a way to revitalize our spirit? I like to think my work could one day embody the erotic and fetishistic-that was the initial intent. But that's only one room in the house because I also crave freedom. Those late night drives to hit up a gas station for snacks, Lethal Company with friends, cheeseburgers and Van Halen. How do we sustain ourselves that way in today's society? Not impossible, certainly, but more difficult as a result of socioeconomic institutions, the ones that declare the highest goal attainable is the pursuit of material wealth just for the sake of it. We're all in a race to see who can get out of it the fastest and the reward we might be promised is rest, freedom, or a little peace of mind. Funnily enough, the trick is that you can't win the race by running it. No, that's a fallacy.

The only way to win is to stop playing their game. I used to think that doing so meant some kind of ballistic action but we didn't need that. The answer lies in soft-power, starving the beast. Just like the High-Water Mark, our energy will simply prevail.

_So where does that leave us?: I've let go of the pursuit of any big material goals. Big houses, big boats, big bank accounts, it's not for me as nice as those things would be to have. All the pieces will have to go back in the box someday and I'd rather not spend a lot of time attached to objects.

No, art and quality time. That's good enough for me.

-Errant out