The Debut of Suelo's Bicycle Camper

So I've been pretty confined the past five plus years since I've been my parents' (now just my mom's) live-in caretaker here in Fruita, Colorado. But I've been working on stuff, when I can.  

Here's evidence I still have moneyless life on the road in my visions:

My bicycle camper!  

I started working on this bicycle camper a couple years ago, then put in on hold, then, a couple months ago, got inspired to work on it again.  It's made of all scavenged, discarded & recycled materials, nothing bought (except I cheated a bit and the glue is purchased). 

The inside isn't completed yet, but I did just take the camper on the road a few days ago, going 100 miles (161 km)!  Thanks to my brother, Doug, staying with our mom for 3 days, I could do this.  He did some of the video filming, too.

Yes, here's a video of my 100-mile bicycle camper debut journey from Fruita, Colorado to Cisco, Utah (and back again)!  I got to see Eileen Muza along with Jon Bartel (her artist in residence) and his art exhibit there. 

Yeah, yeah, this video is full of typo and spelling errors.  That's what I get for putting it together in a rush:

https://youtu.be/kuulv0zsBGg

 

It was grand to see some other old friends from Moab and around I hadn't seen for the first time in like forever, as well.

The 100-mile round trip went well, though I did have a camper tire blowout on the way back to Fruita, limping back home.  

It was a great trial run for possible future life on the road again.  

Pics of the camper's building progress

I started this in the summer of 2017.  It started with a bicycle trailer my friend Tim had found abandoned in a Wal Mart parking lot in eastern Oregon.  

The frame is made from several aluminum camp chairs I found in dumpsters.  It was almost mystical how they fit together perfectly, with minimal alteration, like a rector set.  I also used some discarded aluminum strips from my friend's camper-trailer-building workshop (where the first pics here are taken).

I then paneled it with cardboard.  The windows are made of cross-sections of 5-gallon plastic buckets and clear plastic sheets I found in dumpsters.  The windows are double pane, openable, and with screens.

The outer paneling is made with corrugated plastic campaign signs.  The shingles are made with soda and beer cans, attached with staples made of discarded bailing & hanger wire.

It even has an aluminum screen door, cut to size from a regular house screen door.

The uncompleted interior:

My brother said the scale-like shingles reminded him of a dragon, so this inspired me to go with a dragon theme:

It was even decorated for Fruita's Christmas Light Parade in 2018

My sister-in-law, Elaine, helped me decorate the camper as the Snow Queen's castle, while I decorated my mom's wheelchair as the Snow Queen's sleigh.

And my (then 91-year-old) mother, Laurel, was the Snow Queen!

Natural Selection Favors the Meandering Path, the Efficient Path

It's finally here, my second Vlog post!

Just pondering about straight and squiggly lines in nature.

There aren't very many "straight" lines in nature, and really none of those that appear straight are actually straight. Even light travels in waves.

In the 3rd century BCE, Archimedes first articulated that the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line.

Now we think the shortest distance between 2 points the most efficient.

Right?

But, I ask, is the straight line really efficient?

If so, if natural selection selects the most fit, why does it almost always select against the straight line and for the meandering line?

If you can pull yourself away from these gadgets and grids long enough and go into a field, just look around.

Yes, nature is saturated with meandering paths.

But commercial civilization, on the other hand, almost always selects against the wavy line, for the straight line!

Look at city plans for thousands of years.

Look at our grids, electronics, computers, houses, windows.

Why the straight line?

We think the shortest distance, the fastest distance, is the fittest, the most efficient.

But it's not. That's right.

Commerce is goal-oriented, based on money, meaning end reward.

"Civilized" people work for the sake of end reward, not for the sake of the journey.

We don't regard work as the reward but the end as the reward.

This creates the straightest line, the quickest line possible.

By its very nature, the straight line as such disregards its environment, disregards its neighbors, disregards surrounding terrain, disregards resting and relaxation, joy in the moment.

In other words, the straight lines of civilization tell us the end justifies the means.

In other words, the straight path is the least efficient, the most wasteful path. Just look around. Overwhelming waste piles up around our straight lines.

Our straight-line grid is contrary to natural selection, contrary to biology, contrary to evolution, despite what we think.

Our civilization has gotten straighter and straighter for thousands of years, now straighter than ever, surrounded by insurmountable waste and inefficiency.

Ancient Chinese/Taoist folklore says evil spirits travel along straight lines.

Hence, traditional Asian architecture and paths are purposefully made to curve and meander.

Our brains are wired in curved lines because they are selected for efficiency, awareness, intelligence, art.

Our computers are wired in straight lines, because we think they are more efficient, but their intelligence is artificial, fake, contrary to awareness, contrary to consciousness.

Maybe one day we will learn to select beauty, meandering paths, intelligence, art.

But it can never happen in a society that lives for end reward.

116Hogg Shelly, Tim Fredrick and 114 others

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Pandemics & Money

Pandemics & Money

I'm making this blog into a vlog, and here's my first official video and transcript for it, the first in a series to come.  If you feel so inspired, you may also go to my YouTube channel and subscribe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QMVsL5o9RM&t=1s)

Welcome to my very first video called Pandemics and Money. This is hopefully going to be the first
video in a series about gift economy and money and how they relate--how pandemics are actually
an outgrowth of money itself; and I'll explain how and why.

Pandemics A Given Fact of Civilization

First of all, we see that pandemics have been a given fact of civilization since it began thousands of
years ago. 

What is civilization but the domestication of other species?  Domestication is the very foundation of civilization.  Civilization is the decision to domesticate both plants and animals and to live in close proximity with domestic animals.

We know that the life cycle of organisms, such as viruses and bacteria and parasites, is often dependent upon two or more species together, because life cycles often complete themselves through jumping from one species to another; or, as in the case of a virus, it often begins in one species and jumps into another species, which has no immunity against the virus, so the virus grows exponentially.

Viruses, bacteria, and parasites naturally occur in wild nature, but they're kept in check because wild animals don't live naturally in such close proximity in massive populations with other species.

Such populations are the result of civilization as we know it.  Civilization is quite new in the evolutionary scene. 

Domestication: Denying Adulthood to Another Species

As far as I know, we're the only species that owns and domesticates other species.

I'm going to cut the euphemisms and call domestication for what it is:

Domestication is slavery.

Domestication is the control of another species.  Domestication is denying the autonomy of another species.  That's all it is.

When you domesticate another species, you breed it to be perpetually immature.  You even control its sexual life.  It's not free to sexually reproduce and explore without your control.  Often it's bred to not even reproduce sexually at all. 

For example, we mow grass before it goes to seed.  We can't allow it to reproduce freely.  We have to control it. 

We own another species because we want to control and reproduce it for food--either food or other utilitarian uses, such as riding horses, yokes of oxen pulling plows, dogs providing services.  Or the purpose might just be that we want a perpetual baby to take care of, that we think is cute.

This is what domestication does: it creates a state of perpetual immaturity in animals, because
immature animals are easier to control and they're not aggressive.

Excessive Biomass of Domestic Mammals on Earth

Especially presently on earth, we have an inordinate amount of domestic animals and humans, as opposed to wild animals.  Right now, in human history, 96 percent of the biomass of mammals on earth is domestic animals, and only 4.2 percent of this biomass of mammals is wild.  This is crazy.  This is a percentage flip from the way it was only like a thousand years ago.

Fall From Grace: One Package 

My theory has been that animal and plant domestication, money, trade, and credit-and-debt thinking all came in one package.  This is because they're all based on the same principle.

I believe many of our mythologies speak of what I believe to be the beginning of this principle.  For example, our own in western tradition, the Garden of Eden story, it talks about the Fall from Grace, which I interpret to mean the fall from gratis, from gift economy.  With this fall came the idea of credit and debt, and with this came agriculture (tilling the ground by the sweat of our brows), with it came separation of male and female (domination of male over female is part of the Eden story) and clothes. 

In other world myths it's the concept of stealing fire from heaven, which I'm not going to go into now), but it's the same idea.   It's what separates us from wild nature.

Agriculture is the same Principle as Money

The way agriculture works, of course, is you intentionally plant a seed.  You invest the seed and you wait for the produce.   You wait for the reward.  This is the same concept as money. 

We even call it a seed investment:  You plant an investment and you wait for the returns.

The Pay-It-Forward Principle of Nature is the Essence of the World's Faiths

This is the principle of money that is opposed to the principle of what we could call it Pay-It-Forward in nature.  For example, a bird eats a seed from a tree.  It eats the fruit, swallows the seed, and poops it out somewhere else. 

The bird doesn't sit there and cultivate the seed and wait for the produce.  It pays it forward.  Somebody else will reap the fruits of the "labor" of the bird, the so-called "labor."  The birds is just doing its thing.  It's the same with the bear eating raspberries.  There's no conception of "I have to pay this raspberry bush back!"  The bear eats the raspberry and moves on. 

No Distinction Between Giving and Receiving

And the raspberry bush, as far as it's concerned, is receiving a service by the bear eating its berries. 

There's no idea of receiving and giving a service: it's all one thing!  Is a bear giving a service or receiving a service when it poops in the ground?  Are the organisms in the ground receiving a service or giving a service when they eat that poop or when a seed sprouts from the poop?  The cycles continue a perfect balance in the natural order. 

No Consciousness of Credit and Debt

I say that this is precisely because there's no consciousness of credit and debt as there is in human civilization.  So with credit and debt thinking comes planting and reaping the rewards of what we plant.

Even our religious traditions recommend against this.  If you want to follow the spiritual path, you give expecting nothing in return.  You "pay it forward." 

This is a concept in the Bible. 

For in this the saying is true: "One sows and another reaps." I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.               --Jesus (John 4:37-38)

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return             --Jesus (Luke 6:35)

It's concept in the Quran.

Give not with the thought to gain,And be patient unto thy Lord.(Quran 74:6-7)
He who gives away his wealth...and he who gives no favor to any one for the sake of reward,but only craving the face of his Lord most High;in the end he shall be well pleased!(Quran 92:4,18-21)

It's a concept in the Bhagavad Gita.  The Bhagavad Gita is very clear on this.  It even calls it
relinquishing the rewards, or the fruits, of your own actions.  It actually uses the word fruit, as
if you're planting a seed.

A person of yoga obtains everlasting peace by abandoning the rewards of action.The person ignorant of yoga,selfishly attached to reward,remains bound.(Bhagavad Gita 5:12) 

It's a concept in the Tao Te Ching:

Creating without claiming,Doing without taking credit,Guiding without interfering:This is the Primal Virtue.  -- Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching 51)

It's a concept in the Buddist Suttras:

Enlightened beings are magnanimous givers,bestowing whatever they havewith equanimity,without regret,without hoping for reward,without seeking honor,without coveting material benefits,but only to rescue and safeguardall living beings.(Garland Sutra 21)

It's a concept in Judaism:

Be not like the servantswho minister to their masterupon condition of receiving a reward;but be like servantswho minister to their masterwithout the condition of receiving a reward;and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.(Mishna, Abot 1.3)

The whole concept of money is planting a seed and waiting for rewards, taking rewards for your own actions.  

Working for money puts us into a state of delusion.  Money represents self-credit, right?  I work for a reward.  "I deserve it."  Money represents working for my own reward.  What is reward but praise?

All Praise to the Whole, All Price to the Whole

Praise and price come from the same root, clear back to Proto-Indo-European times.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/price

I work for my own praise.  I work for my own price, whereas, in the world of reality, nothing comes from us individually.  Everything comes from the Whole.  We are a product of the whole.   We're a product to
our culture.  We're a product of our biology.  We're a product of the Whole Universe.

In fact, all of the energy that is running my body right now comes from the sun.  It does not come from me, so I can't take credit for it.

Basically, then, not working for money is acknowledging,

"All credit to the Whole,"

"All credit to the All"

"All praise to the All"

Hallelujah

Jesus himself even says,

I can do nothing of myself.          --Jesus (John 5:30)

This is the very principle of not working for money.

Ownership

What also comes with agriculture/credit-and-debt thinking is ownership.  Ownership is what domestication is: it's ownership of animals and plants and the processes of nature.  It's control over the processes of nature that already instinctively naturally happen.


For example, in in our civilization we have an aversion to anything that's wild.  We keep what's wild separate from us.  We don't allow it within the walls of our civilization.  Just walk around any suburban neighborhood and see how many people obsessively get rid of weeds.  Because weeds are wild or feral, they have their own authority.  Civilization, domestication, cannot stand us having our own authority.  We have to go to somebody else for authority.  We can't allow any other species to have its own authority within the walls of civilization. 
 

We are as Domesticated as the Creatures we Domesticate

What we don't understand is we are as domesticated as the creatures we domesticate.  In fact there's no reason any creature would want to domesticate another creature unless it itself is immature.  It is
immaturity that causes us to own another creature, whether it's slavery of humans or slavery of animals.



And we become what we control. 




So it is with the authorities that we put ourselves in submission under.  Our authorities also are domesticated and immature. 

What mature person would want to
control another?  What mature person would want to deny another autonomy, self-authority, adulthood? 

Factory Farming & Overpopulation

Now our agriculture has evolved into factory farming.  Massive amounts of animals in inhumane conditions live together and live in close proximity with us. 

Yes, another thing that comes with domestication is overpopulation.  We over-populate the
domestic animals that we raise, we over-populate ourselves.
 

Cancer Also Comes in the Package

Also what I believe comes in the same package as money, agriculture, and domestication is cancer.  Cancer has been shown to exist in prehistory from fossil findings, but looks relatively rare until civilization comes along.  Then, all of a sudden, cancer is found all over in the civilized world. 

This is just a hunch; this is intuition:  But I feel that excessive cancer and monetary civilization also come together in the same package.  Cancer appears to be a manifestation of money thinking.

Case in point: the only two things that i can think of that "think" that unlimited growth is a virtue
are cancer and monetary economy.  Go to any city or county council meeting and note: what's the one thing that nobody will dare question?  Unlimited growth!  If your economy is not growing perpetually then we think there's something wrong.  The only other organism that I can think of that "thinks" this way is cancer (if you can call it thinking).  It runs on the principle of exponential growth. 

Look at cancer, economy, human population, and even CO2 levels in the climate: they all grow exponentially.  They coincide together.   There is a correlation.

With overpopulation of both humans and animals comes pandemics.  Big populations of
animals and humans living together breeds pandemics.  In addition to this overpopulation of animals in factory farms is the excessive use of antibiotics and antiseptics, as also happens in hospitals.  These extremely sterile environments, of course, weed out the weaker microbes and the
strongest survive by the laws of natural selection.  We're creating super-germs.

We're creating not only pandemics but super-germ pandemics.  It's inevitable that we will see more
pandemics as time goes, because we are the petri dish of pandemics.