]]>I have found that most psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals are not only extraordinarily compliant with authorities but also unaware of the magnitude of their obedience. And it also has become clear to me that the anti-authoritarianism of their patients creates enormous anxiety for these professionals, and their anxiety fuels diagnoses and treatments.
]]>I imagine the capitalist Armageddon, the war at the end of the world as we know it, where every blade of grass, every molecule of air, every variety of living thing, every action, every bit of information is owned -- or somebody declares ownership of it, and the war is between those who obey these declarations of ownership and those who do not.
This war started before your landlord claimed to "own" where you live; it was already old when the Europeans claimed to "own" the land the Indians were living on. It started when the idea of "own" was invented, and it's going to keep going until everything is owned, before nothing is owned.
GPS is a significant learning augment for me. The 'trick' is that I never use turn by turn navigation, but I study the map and find my own way.
This raises a question for techno-utopians: Which world is better, one where technologies are selected and designed so we can only use them to make ourselves stronger, or one where we are free to use technologies to make ourselves weaker? If the latter, what if most people use most technologies in a short-sighted way, so that on the whole, they make life worse? Never mind utopia -- how does this even count as good? I would answer that the freedom to make mistakes eventually makes us stronger, when we learn not to make the mistakes.
Today I'm going to Burlington, then Syracuse on the weekend, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. Oddly, Pittsburgh is sort of a Greyhound dead end. It's hard to get anywhere from there without leaving or arriving at a time when you should be sleeping. If someone in Columbus or Indianapolis can pick me up and drop me off at the station, I'll happily stay a night. Otherwise I'll probably take an overnight bus to St Louis, then Chicago if I have time, and end my bus pass in Ann Arbor, where a reader has offered to drive me to Minnesota, and another reader might drive me all the way back, or I'll take the train.
I like showing up for a group mountain hike where inevitably everyone's wearing specialized wicking techno-clothing, boots that cost more than my monthly rent, carrying giant back packs, and usually someone even has carbon-fiber walking poles. Meanwhile I'm there in my sneakers, cotton t-shirt, with my lunch stuffed into the leg pockets of my cargo pants and a big bottle of water in my hand. Guess who's usually the first to the summit?
The author claims not to be a minimalist because he does it for practical reasons rather than virtuous reasons. I would almost say the opposite: if you reduce your stuff for anything other than practical reasons, you're not a minimalist because you don't really understand it.
Also on the subject of more stuff being bad for you, an important argument that GPS navigators make us stupid. The idea is that without the devices, we have to build cognitive maps, which is great mental exercise. I appreciate all the people on this tour who have given me rides using GPS devices, but I would never use one myself. I always go on google maps (or openstreetmap.org) and sketch a map with pen and paper. When you're traveling, the most important thing is understanding where you are. With GPS navigators, I can feel the understanding of where I am being sucked out of my mind and locked away in a computer.