/** * file: journal_karbytes_26november2024.txt * type: plain-text * date: 25_NOVEMBER_2024 * author: karbytes * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN */ I remember complaining about some of the “problems” I have been experiencing while sharing a legal residence with my parents sporadically since I was a teenager, but one of those “problems” is relatively new because it started after I legally changed my address of residence from my mother’s house (at 18618 Crest Avenue, Castro Valley, California 94546) to my father’s house (at 4757 Mira Vista Place, Castro Valley, California 94546) in May 2016 hoping that the chance of residence would make it easier for me to study, sleep, and hold down a job due to the fact that my father’s place tends to be quieter and less populated than my mother’s house. The main “problem” I have been experiencing while living at my father’s house is my father refusing to prevent his cigarette smoke from infiltrating the entire house because he insists on smoking inside the house in a room which is next to the washing machine and dryer. My father has insisted that merely shutting the door (which has at least half a centimeter of clearance underneath it) is sufficient to keep the smoke out (and usually that keeps most of the smoke relegated to only that part of the house) but, yesterday (and when Steve (the only other resident living at that house besides me and my dad) was scheduled to be somewhere else for the night), I came home to find that the entire house reeked much more heavily than usual of cigarette smoke (and, as “paranoid” and “ungrateful” as this may sound to some people, I think that may possibly be my father attempting to inflict suffering on me in a passive-aggressive way as a means to “punish” me for apparently having everything I need to bootstrap my way up to a decent-paying career and means to fund my own expenses without requiring income other than what I would earn from working (and my dad has not held down a job in what seems like more than thirty years, has only a high school level education, and does not seem to want to change his routine now that he receives a relatively stable monthly income as Social Security (which a United States citizen is eligible to receive after reaching 65 years of age of some other “sufficiently old” number of years)). (I noticed other people (especially people close to my parents’ age or people who I assume (based on some tangible clues) are more politically conservative than I am) seem to side against me in this “war” even to the extent that those people come across as chauvinist patriarchy mongers (because I heard some of them say that I am not supposed to look like I am currently working harder nor making more money than my father is)). To deal with the cigarette smoke in “my” house (which I genuinely worry about worsening my health by exposing me to cancer-causing carcinogens), I generally leave my bedroom window open when I am at that house (but I close the window when I leave because (a) the house heater is set to my father’s temperature preferences and tends to turn on when the temperature drops beneath approximately 68 degrees Fahrenheit (and leaving my window open somehow causes the entire house temperature to drop unless the door is shut (and the door does not seem to stay shut unless the door knob bolt is properly adjusted (and the door seems to get opened when I am not looking at it and while I am not at home)) and (b) leaving my bedroom door open and closet door open and window shut shows whoever is in the house or outside the house in line of sight of my bedroom window (which is never intentionally sheathed by me in curtains) that I am not (likely to be) physically present at that house at that time). Alternatively (or when I simply want to sit or lie down in the backyard of my house on the other side of my bedroom window), I set up my tent immediately outside my bedroom (and I made a “convenience” hole in the screen of that window such that I can fish electrical cables through it in order to keep my electronics attached to a “limitless” power supply while I am stationed with my electronics inside of that tent or simply sitting out there without a tent (which is not good to do if it is raining)). (The last time I set up my tent in the aforementioned location in “my” backyard of “my” neighborhood, I left the tent unattended for approximately two days. When I came back home after those two days, I saw that my tent had been moved from where I placed it next to my bedroom window to a shittier location (on a hill rather than on relatively flat ground) near the upper south corner of the backyard under a willow tree seemingly in order to make that tent appear more hidden from the neighbors whose houses are located on the south side of the field bordering “my” backyard. I took the tent down and put it away in my closet, but I think it is extremely likely that I will take that tent out again this year and set it up right outside my bedroom window again (but only for the time I am actually occupying that tent (which means I intend to take it down and put it away as soon as I am done using it for the respective “session”)). Note that I am not mad at any person in particular and that I think I am erring on the side of being overly paranoid, pessimistic, and demonizing of people other than myself (which my human brain has been shaped via evolution across many sexually reproductive generations to be (i.e. more prone to take interest in threats to its survival than in non-threatening things)). I prefer to assume (or at least pretend) that my father does not intentionally mean to inflict harm on me and only does what he thinks would net in the least amount of suffering (especially to oneself (which is a heuristic common across many if not most human individuals)). In other words, like many other humans, my father is a “creature of habit” and is strongly compelled to channel his resources in such a way as to minimize energy expenditure and unpleasant experiences. Having a relatively stable routine and personal environment configuration is something I would not want to deprive any person of; myself included. Hence, to be what I think is “fair” to “everyone”, I insist on continuing to carry out my own personal routine (which includes the following attributes): attribute_0: making 4757 Mira Vista Place, Castro Valley, California 94546 my designated place to store my personal belongings, shower, wash clothes, recieve mail, and sleep (under the condition that I have legal permission to continue living there and that I feel sufficiently comfortable with that arrangement). attribute_1: camping with or without a tent in the backyard outside of my bedroom window in order to breathe relatively clean air and to not be loitering in a place I am not authorized to be at (especially given that some of the only other places I could legally get away with lodging at are campgrounds at the nearby Lake Chabot Regional Park or other “no man’s land” type of places which are rarely traversed by humans and “sufficiently far” away from what I think are annoyances and hazards) and putting away my tent as soon as I am done dwelling inside of it after a given session. attribute_2: spending most of my daytime hours at some job or at some public cafe with Internet access (which is what I am doing now as I write this note (and I appreciate being inside a relatively safe, comfortable, and well-populated place where people can relax, converse, and work in harmony with each other)). One thing I really appreciate about working on my laptop in a cafe is that it is the closest approximation to having a (hybrid or remote) job I currently have access to while unemployed because the people in such places are implicitly obliged to adhere to relatively professional conduct (which is not the case with people who are relegated to settings which are less populated by humans, outdoors, and which do not implicitly depend on people paying to be at such places). attribute_3: spending some of my day or night hours camping outdoors other than my legal residence or some other public or commercial establishment (e.g. a library, a Starbucks restaurant) in order to immerse myself more intensively in my introspective endeavors (by minimizing distractions from my environment (especially cultural or social constructs)). Nature is a richly prolific source of inspiration and novelty for me to behold and to learn from. Hence, I find it worth my time to (at least once per week) spend at least three hours immersed in a solitary retreat in a relatively secluded wilderness area. attribute_4: making my lifelong job being a curator of karbytes intellectual property and student of the topics which karbytes pertains to as the primary means to imbue by life with a sense of purpose, direction, community preferences, language preferences, recreational preferences, vocational preferences, and sense of transcendence beyond the realm of immediately experienced phenomena. (A summary of what that karbytes intellectual property is can be viewed on the following web page: https://karbytesforlifeblog.wordpress.com/about_karbytes/ ). attribute_5: intentionally avoiding publicizing content which I think appeals more to other people than to myself (and I have noticed that humans other than myself have put pressure on me to engage in territorial disputes with them and to feature them more prominently in my blogging platform). For approximately five years I have concluded that many (but not all and not necessarily even most) people are adamant about trying to deter me from staying focused on the content I would rather devote my resources to covering (and mastering) than to content which I think is pettier and less relevant to my goals and preferences. I am afraid that most content which people consume and generate is relatively garbage compared to what I consider karbytes to generally be (especially “at its best”). Of course, I am unabashedly prone to saying things which make me sound like an elitist snob. I do have particular standards pertaining to how I create original content and how I otherwise live my life (and I do not like acting in ways which are not congruent with my personal standards). What I think I “should” do (not just for myself but also for other people’s benefit and to give them a “role model” to reference) is exemplify how to live very well as someone who is voluntarily relationally single, voluntarily celibate, voluntarily hermetic (but not too socially isolated not awkward to function around or with other people) and to make my hobbies and/or career the main (if not exclusive) focus of my blogging platform. Then again, I am a staunch promoter of every person’s “right” to express their ideas with minimal censorship. Sometimes I too might find it worth my time to write up something relatively “trashy” (i.e. gossip-laden, more of a rant than a problem-solving attempt, appeasement to an abuser, tepid passive-aggressive “humor” to vent one’s frustration at “the status quo”, or any other content which I don’t think is particularly grounded in a modern science-informed and carefully thought about naturalistic worldview and sense of personal ideals and goals beyond merely surviving and avoiding suffering).