Though I sometimes say I am in my second half-century of life, I have never been interested in keeping score and I have had no interest in being competitive about anything.
As of 2022 Jan 09, I am outdoors in the city [words--culture.htm#], and have been mostly in a neighborhood known as Ka-imu-kī (Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, USA, Earth) ever since mid-2008, though closer to the Kāhala area lately. I am without any social capital [words--culture.htm#] and I am without any resources (other than my experience with computers) to share with anyone else.
That is, I have nothing available to share with land/home owners [words--culture.htm#ownership] to help with their responsibilities of stewardship.
Without a place indoors [words--general.htm#], I have no means of storing possessions [words--culture.htm#] and so at the moment I am making a practice of collecting nothing more than I feel I can healthfully carry. As such, I am without the means to keep and care for the resources employers typically expect employees to already have.
I pretty much never start a conversation myself, perhaps only ever wishing "good morning" or "good afternoon" or "good evening" as I pass by someone. The info at this docserver can help give ideas about what to talk about with me, or people can try out a different topic already knowing (or suspecting) that I know nothing of their personal interest beforehand (and that is okay). People can also decide to skip starting a conversation with me at all based on what is written in these docs from this docserver "l8l.info".
In short: I am no longer needed by anyone, so I have no place to sleep securely nor to store anything securely (since 2022 Jan 09). Another way of putting it: everything I carry is all I have, plus this docserver "l8l.info" of information. The following is more brief than the document.
Yes, I am that person walking around with "L8L.info" clipped to the front and back of myself. It has gotten to the point that I know no one (best references have died the last several years) and I am out of ideas of how to get to know people. Everybody drives around in a box (and it is difficult to see inside it), and I have been behind the computer most of my life.
I am outdoors (since 2022 January 09) in the city [words--culture.htm#] and for more than two years have been sleeping near the intersection at Waiʻalae Ave and 21st Ave, usually on the other side of guardrail by the tall metal box. However, sometimes rain prompts strangers to shift around into the area and occupy the same space. In that case, I politely avoid them while trying to stay dry (and out of the way of everyone), but probably still near that intersection under that overpass.
So, I pretty much feel less scared of everybody else despite having no allowance of being indoors anymore. This is not my first time outdoors in the city, but everything is always changing so it took time (about a year and half) to fit in while minimizing being disruptive to anyone else managing being outdoors. Anyway, now I am trying to let everyone in the neighborhood know I, a longtime neighbor (though never owning a house), am no one scary either (even after the worldwide germ scare we all went through).
I never ask for anything, as I have no place to put anything. Either ownership [words--culture.htm#] or possession is responsibility, and I am without the means for such responsibilities other than what I can comfortably carry. On the other hand, I am sharing my notes from this docserver "L8L.info", as this is all I have for sharing with anyone.
What money I find or am given I use for new clothes (just what I am wearing, no extra sets) from the Goodwill store, usually t-shirt and slacks so as to keep a somewhat respectable appearance. There is also the rare occasion I buy bandages and antiseptic when I acquire too many unhealed blisters from walking.
On the other hand, I do sometimes save up for an occasional pizza. [Usually Little Caesars, because of Detroit-style pan pizza (formerly "deep-deep dish", I thought?), muenster cheese, and my nostalgia.]
I have about a half-century of life behind me, and I am entering my second half-century. Perhaps an old leftover technologist, with my interests more along the lines of a computer wizard (research and development) [craft.htm] than a computer genie (maintenance of problems). Prefer to eliminate problems and avoid setting up problems, even if that means an approach eliminating the computer as a tool [sharing.htm#2] for a task.
I have had no need for drugs, no need for alcohol, no need for smoke breathing, no need for "recreational medicines". I grew up with "just say no to drugs" and its general approach worked well for me in many ways.
I eventually figured out what works for me in managing my thoughts [mindset.htm] and managing my memories [human-memory.htm] without blaming other people nor myself, and without buying into the marketed stories for products of companies that care only about making money for staying in business.
In fact, I seem to have lost all the stories about our culture, if I ever really knew them, if a city [words--culture.htm#] can actually ever have a culture. I have practically no interest in any the recent fantasies, f.e. no Santa Claus, no politics, no romance (neither faking making babies, nor for real), no plarping [words--culture.htm], no save-the-world, no save-the-weather, no keep-it-all-going-it-must-not-stop-staying-the-same, no space travel, and so on.
I have no interest in being either an audience (entertainment, fiction, and so on) nor an entertainer, nor in claiming an identity nor a lifestyle. No interest in creating new products nor new services, nor in ever being an entrepreneur.
Yet, there seems to be no such thing as a "need" without a fantasy to sell it. I have no interest in selling myself (though nothing wrong with that approach, as it is the same as fame), perhaps especially because the people I helped did not purchase my personal interest [helped.htm]. Instead, we had overlapping interests (within the computer medium) and (they likely believed) they paid for "my time".
However, I appreciated the opportunity to explore and further develop within my personal interests, and that is what mattered to me. So, I guess I see it as being paid for my participation and sharing the results with them? That also benefitted them. It seems to me my interests motivate me and generate my pursuits, hence I am more likely to feel I am doing my best (and learning more about my interests) rather than merely doing good enough busywork.
Ever since they died [helped.htm#overview], one by one, hence they are done, I keep thinking of how no one needs me anymore, and I end up wondering for what do I myself need if anything at all.
What does anyone need? We all are just waiting, all eight billion people just passing the time until our individual final moments of life, passing by with acceptance and patience. Nothing depressing about that, death is just part of the way of lifeforms.
People end up outdoors and do not die immediately. I lay down knowing I might not wake up, because that is how people die even when indoors. Yet, I wake up each day, still existing, a leftover human. I understand there is no need for humans to live this long. I appreciate my excess existence has been tolerated (or ignored?) by the busier lifeforms.
Yet, I have no interest in actively thinking in that way, of having a mindset [mindset.htm] from those realizations. So I persist, and I never think of myself or everybody else (the eight billion) as excess, never in the sense of being worthless. Everybody gets along with each other, and before the end (rather than "in the end") that is what really matters.
For now, I am part of the untapped abundance of human resources ("human" is an adjective? wow...), water in the pipes. Patient water. Mostly still within the concept of time [words--general.htm] flowing from the PDAs (personal digital assissants masquerading as cellphones) of everyone making them into first-responders for nonexceptional everyday quests. I seem to still be somewhere between memory (past) and fantasy (future), and accepting of all the busy-ness (business) of everyone as mere imitation of the busy-ness of our past.
I doubt anyone really knows why they are doing what they are doing, other than that whatever they are doing has always been done. Hence, we all think it must be "okay" to keep doing whatever we are doing. So, it seems to me there is nothing wrong with all the busy-ness that is being done by us all, as there is no right way anyway.
Yet, everyone seems to be doing fine without me participating. Maybe someday [words--general.htm#] I will get lost within the busy-ness once again, participating, passing the time to my own final moment of life in that way once again.
Until then, my patience and acceptance has felt like enough for me, no anxiousness. I am at peace with myself and everything, just waiting to die, like everyone else. Most definitely without any sadness but also no bursts of energetic happiness, which goes with my understanding of emotion [words--general.htm#] and its emergence with any memories.
[ Jenny Odell ]One thing I have learned about attention is that certain forms of it are contagious. When you spend enough time with someone who pays close attention to something (if you were hanging out with me, it would be birds), you inevitably start to pay attention to some of the same things. I've also learned that patterns of attention—what we choose to notice and what we do not—are how we render reality for ourselves, and thus have a direct bearing on what we feel is possible at any given time.
These aspects, taken together, suggest to me the revolutionary potential of taking back our attention. To capitalist logic, which thrives on myopia and dissatisfaction, there may indeed be something dangerous about something as pedesterian as doing nothing: escaping laterally toward each other, we might just find that everything we wanted is already here.
—Quoted from final page of "Introduction" (page xxiii). How to do nothing: resisting the attention economy (2019) by Jenny Odell. 232 pages. [Library call number: 303.4833]
In the mean time, I have been fiddling with what few pursuits I can manage to pursue [pursuit.htm], with no allowance from anyone for myself being indoors currently, and no means of having possessions [words--culture.htm#] than what I can comfortably carry.