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E23: Urban Self-Reliance & Sustainable Living · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Music.
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Hello, America, and welcome to episode 23 of the Junto Podcast.
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Today, we're going to be talking about some urban and suburban sustainable living,
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different methods and techniques and philosophies and things like that.
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But very first thing I want to go into here is that I would love to give a big
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thanks to the great state of California.
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Now, I know that's odd because I'm usually at political odds with California
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policies and things, but once again, it could have been the greatest state in the union.
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But the reason I'm thanking them is because behind my home state of Georgia,
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that is the second most listenership for my podcast.
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So, so thanks, California. I appreciate that.
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And then I want to give a very special thanks to the beautiful home of my ancestors
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and the home of Murphy's and Guinness Irish Stouts, the country of Ireland.
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Yeah, because they, behind the United States, has the second most,
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that second highest listenership of my podcast internationally.
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So thank you to my Irish cousins.
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And for all of you, please reach out and give feedback. And thanks for sticking with me.
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And I hope to continue to deliver compelling and thoughtful topics to you guys.
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So to the topic at hand. Today, folks, we're going to be talking about sustainable
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living in urban and suburban environments.
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And we're going to relate those to some of the principles and philosophies that
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Benjamin Franklin laid out for us centuries ago.
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The philosophy of libertarian values and the value of self-reliance and individual liberty.
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So a little bit about Benjamin Franklin.
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Everybody knows who he is, but Benjamin Franklin, his youth,
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he was not, he didn't come up in a wealthy family.
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He was the youngest in a very large family, and he had extremely limited formal
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education. I think he left school at the age of 10.
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Well, his parents pulled him from school or whatever at the age of 10.
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Now, he was born in Boston, Massachusetts. So there was still very formal institutions
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back in those days in the early 1700s.
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So they pulled him from school at the age of 10 to help with his dad's business,
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which was, you know, he was making soap and a candle maker.
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And from 10 to 12, you know, young Benjamin worked with his dad.
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And then at the age of 12, he took an apprenticeship under his older brother,
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James, who was a printer.
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And that's where Benjamin Franklin learned his trade and that's where he really
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sharpened his writing skills and even at that young age,
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he was submitting anonymous articles to the newspaper and he had such a passion, well,
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for self-improvement and for reading and for learning that he was essentially
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from that point on self-educated.
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And this experience developed his resourcefulness and his independence And his
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work ethic and his creativity and all those things,
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So in the days of young Ben Franklin,
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And think back, folks, I'm talking
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about well, you know, pre-industrial revolution, well back beyond that.
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The typical family led a very agrarian lifestyle, and it was centered around
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self-sufficiency. You had to be self-sufficient.
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You didn't just run to the grocery store or run to the shop to get something fixed.
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You came up with the sun, you farmed your crops, you tended your animals,
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and you preserved your own food. They cured food, canned food, and things like that.
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Manual labor was just a norm.
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They churned butter. They made their own clothing.
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And they relied on locally sourced materials like firewood, like getting water
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from a river or creek, especially in a rural environment.
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Most people lived in proximity to some kind of water source.
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I mean, that's how you got water.
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So back in the day, pre-industrial revolution and beyond, yeah,
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what we're calling sustainable living these days was just normal life in those days.
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Now, look, I'm not poo-pooing on technology or anything like that.
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I'm just saying that was the norm. It was very normal.
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The result of that lifestyle, there was minimal waste and very high physical demands on people.
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Now, we look today, we think, oh, high physical demand.
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But, you know, people were strong. People were hard. It was just the normal way of life.
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Modern sustainable living techniques are very similar to the ways of old.
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Composting organic waste, your food, that's a big thing.
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Composting, that's, well, we'll get to the sort of community around that kind
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of thing here in a little bit. growing your own food, your garden,
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having your own gardens.
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To something as simple as walking and biking versus driving to work if you live in proximity.
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In order to save money, yeah. In order to reduce emissions, yeah.
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But also in order to be more fit.
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And then these days, you know, technology came along. We have solar panels.
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We have ways to get energy beyond just Georgia power.
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Beyond getting raped every day by Georgia power.
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And these days this sustainability movement, now sometimes it's driven by,
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yeah, you're conscious to be a good steward of the earth, sometimes it's driven
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by politics, we're not going to get into that too much, but rather than necessity,
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right, back in the day it was necessity, there was no green party, there was no climate,
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change and stress it was just necessity.
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And these days,
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yeah, there's various reasons for it.
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And these days, you know, you don't have to be a Luddite to want to live sustainably.
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You know, you can buy energy efficient appliances and things like that so that
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you still have modern conveniences. You know what I mean?
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And global connectivity, right? Nobody wants to give up their phone.
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But there are environmentally friendly ways to have modern conveniences,
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more environmentally friendly.
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Lithium still be in mind regardless. Anyway, so the comparison of the old ways
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versus the modern sort of sustainability movement.
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And there's a shared emphasis, well, almost on harmony with nature.
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Yes, we want to be in tune with nature and we don't want to disrupt nature too much.
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And these days, you know, there's a lot of innovation around minimalist living,
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well, and fighting climate change and things like that.
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I happen to believe climate change is just a normal thing that the earth is
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going to do what the earth does no matter what we do.
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I believe that the majority, politically, I believe that the majority of these
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climate activists, I believe they act and think in a very arrogant way.
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I don't believe that mankind on this earth is even a blip on the scale of this earth. And...
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By the damage that we can do. We can make our lives miserable,
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but the reality is I believe the earth is just going to fix itself when it's time to fix itself.
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And people make reference to the giant floating mass of trash in the Pacific Ocean or somewhere.
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Yeah, I'm not saying we're not dirtying the place up, but I don't believe we're
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ever going to, I believe the earth, okay, I'm not going to go into all that political stuff.
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At any rate, yeah, innovation.
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Different methodologies of fighting climate change and living more sustainably
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and less consumption in contrast to the early days where resourcefulness and being frugal,
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being a minimal, that was just because there was limited options.
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That was just out of necessity. And there ain't nothing wrong with that either.
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Ain't nothing wrong with that either. Ben Franklin had sort of a,
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well, definitely self-reliance, right?
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A principle or an attitude of self-reliance. And he had an attitude of sort
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of waste not, want not, obviously from the lifestyle that he grew up with.
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So his ideas of being frugal, but also being innovative and having work ethic,
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all of those things challenge today's sort of disposable culture in consumerism,
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like rampant consumerism.
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Now, I myself, good people, am an unrepentant capitalist, and I do consume,
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but I also believe that I also produce at least services, if not goods,
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to exchange goods and services, right?
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But But the consumerism I'm referring to, you can also sort of say materialism,
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where you want things, things, things.
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But then in today's society, you know, things, even cars these days seem to be disposable.
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You know, you might get 100,000 miles or so out of them. Then they break down.
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It costs too much money to fix. So you just buy a new car or a used car. Thank you.
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In contrast, if you guys remember, you know, anywhere from the,
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I'd say, 70s or 80s, probably the 80s, all the way up to about the early 2000s.
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Toyotas, they were three, four, 500,000 miles.
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Those things were a little indestructible, dependable tanks.
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And that kind of quality, I think, is lacking a little bit. at least in the car business.
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So that's what I'm saying. Something even as big of a purchase as a car is still
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kind of disposable these days.
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And we depend on these external goods and services, folks.
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And dependency on anything ultimately is going to be bad.
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Dependence on anything is ultimately going to be bad in the long run.
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If we can have these ideas that, if we can live by the principles that Ben Franklin laid out for us.
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We can be empowered to be more autonomous in our own lives, and then that will
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foster some creativity.
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And I'll point you to a recent blog that I did called The Paradox of Constraints,
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and where I talked about innovation through necessity, minimal options.
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You live simply, not because you're a simple person, but because you simply
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don't have the resources to live extravagantly.
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And what that does is creates a.
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Sort of resourceful urgency. You learn how to do things in a different way to
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acquire the things you need.
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And it also kind of encourages divergent thinking and how to reframe your situation, right?
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Scarcity becomes opportunity. Scarcity becomes opportunity.
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And we all know the quote, necessity is the mother of invention.
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But the earliest example of that came from Plato. Yeah.
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In the Republic, Plato wrote, our need will be the real creator.
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So, yeah, I think living simply is also ultimately a more creative way to live.
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Because if you can go purchase all the things you need, then what is your thought process?
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Dipping your toes in the pool, right? And chilling and sipping on, you know, a cocktail.
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So in this episode, folks, we've already gotten into it.
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We're going to talk about some personal benefits of simple living,
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some practical applications, some things we can do, and how it can sort of enhance
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our own individual liberty and autonomy.
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And how it can maybe enhance our own sort of financial freedom or independence,
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and overall well-being, folks, and eventually just being a better,
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more well-rounded person for it all.
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So what are some of the urban sustainable living basics?
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Well, that implies some things like reducing the amount of waste we produce.
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Folks, everything that you consume creates waste.
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Unless you pick an apple off a tree.
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And even then, you usually toss the core, right?
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That core is waste. Now, an apple core will compost pretty quickly.
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But at any rate, if you go to McDonald's and get your Happy Meal,
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you've got a lot of waste that goes along with
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that artificial food so urban
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sustainable living we talk reducing waste reusing
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available resources if possible cutting excess consumption in your home at your
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work and in your daily life i'm gonna i'm gonna say a thing here these are some
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song lyrics from way back, and I'm going to share with you.
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Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinking what they're selling.
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Your self-destruction doesn't hurt them, and your chaos won't convert them.
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That's some real stuff, folks. The song was fun, right? Rock and Roll Lifestyle by Cake.
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The song was fun, but excess ain't rebellion.
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You're drinking what they're selling, folks. that's the
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way it is you're drinking coke or pepsi you
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don't you don't you don't make your own stuff you don't drink
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water natural water right just very literally you're buying what they're selling
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how many people rushed to american eagle to pick a pair of jeans on this latest
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campaign with damn the blonde-headed girl that's all the controversy i can't
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think of her name right now,
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the American Eagle ad campaign with blue jeans.
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You're drinking what they're selling, folks. And that's a part of the autonomy,
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right, is you choose what you consume,
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not the four or five corporations that own everything on the planet.
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Ultimately, this leads us down the road to personal autonomy instead of relying
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on these behemoth corporations or government services to sustain your life.
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I don't want to get into these corporations too much, but you guys are fully
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aware that probably like, I want to say,
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seven or eight big conglomerates own very nearly everything we consume in food
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and in medicine in those realms. And it's bizarre.
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And down here on the ground level we we
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look at burger king and then
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we look at kfc and we go oh man i don't know which one i want them it all goes
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to the same place folks it just all goes to the same place so it's just bizarre
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but i don't want to get into that too much i want you guys to go back in time
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with me a little bit to i don't know what year was early 2000s there was an
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animated a movie called WALL-E.
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Yeah, WALL-E. W-A-L-L-E.
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Now, folks, this was a brilliant movie. I don't care if you hate Disney or Pixar or whatever.
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If you watch this movie from a perspective of libertarianism and yeah,
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the movie was a little bit environmentalist sort of, but it was more than that.
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It was way much more than that.
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And this was a future where the Earth, folks, was completely consumed with trash.
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And all the humans had to be, they all lived in these hyper,
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these AI, hyper-technical spaceship, luxury spaceships.
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The entire population of Earth was sent up to space in these spaceships that
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were run by artificial intelligence.
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And the people on these were obese and had zero bone density and everything
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was at their touch or their thought.
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All they had to do was say a thing and that thing would be delivered to them.
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Artificial food, artificial entertainment, whatever, but no physical activity.
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No, no. And so all the people, if you look back at this and you go,
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oh my God, they're all fat.
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Yeah, they were all fat and blobby, like amorphous. You know what I mean?
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And the story, Wally was, he was the little trash compactor. That was his job.
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And he was the only robot on earth. and his job was to scoop up trash,
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compact it into a little cube.
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And then Wally, you know, out of boredom, the robot got bored,
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right? And he started building these trash skyscrapers.
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And then Eve came down and her job in life was to detect life,
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organic life, to detect organic life.
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So her and Wally teamed up and they got, you know, it was a little love story
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and it was nice and it was cute.
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And eventually they found, well, Eve found a little, a little,
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a little twig, a little, a little plant that was just emerging from, from dirt.
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And ultimately Eve takes this back to the big spaceship. I think the big mothership
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was called Axiom or something like that, which was run by AI, by the way.
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And yes, Eve and Wally fall in love. Yes, they do find life and they take it
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back. But there was a big plot, right?
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The plot by AI was to keep the people fat and happy and in space,
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never again to inhabit Earth.
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And fortunately, the sort of token captain of the ship grew some nuts.
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And then, right, they went on a journey to rediscover their sense of purpose
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and to repopulate Earth.
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It was much deeper than just an animated film ought to be.
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And it was a warning of unchecked consumerism. I think also a warning of unchecked AI. And...
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And then environmentalism, right? Unchecked waste, unchecked consumerism.
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And the earth literally was completely covered in trash.
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Now, I'm not trying to go dark here. I thought it was a brilliant film.
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Even then, I liked it. I thought, you know, but looking back on it with a different
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lens, man, it's really pretty deep.
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But it's a cautionary tale, folks. That's exactly what it is on two fronts,
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on environmentalism and on AI.
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And three fronts and on consumerism, really.
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So living simply, this helps us to be creative. Ben Franklin was very creative.
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Now I know, I bet most of you know that Ben Franklin created bifocals,
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but did you know also that Ben Franklin created swim fins?
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Yeah, flippers for swimming.
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How bizarre is that? So he was very creative, but everything that he did create, Think about this.
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This is the early 1700s, you know, 17, 12, 15.
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He created the Junto Club. Well, it's probably a little later now.
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He created the Junto Club in 1727.
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So I want to say he was 21 years old when that happened.
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So this guy was creating and inventing things at a pretty young age,
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right? But he used local resources, folks, things that were available at that time. Good Lord.
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And it wasn't that much stuff.
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And he did it to, yes, for self-improvement, but to improve other people as well.
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And the point is that you don't need all this whiz-bang stuff to be creative.
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And that mindset of creativity and simplicity, it counters this whole disposable
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earth mindset, this whole disposable goods consumerism mindset.
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And then it can lead you down the road. And it will, folks,
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if you're wholly dependent on McDonald's to feed you, and you're wholly dependent
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on the government to pay your house note or rent, then you're depending on someone.
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If they choose to stop, then what are you going to do?
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You can't be wholly dependent on anything, folks.
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And I'm not being cynical about that. Well, with the exception of God and yourself.
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And your maybe family. Yeah.
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If the government, like let's use property rights, for instance.
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I own my property per se. I pay a mortgage on it.
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The property taxes, if my property were paid for outright, you know,
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and I'd still have to pay property taxes or they're going to still come take my stuff away.
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And there's a dependency on government. Now, I don't like that and I don't agree with that at all.
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But dependency is a problem because it kind of makes you, instead of an autonomous
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citizen, it kind of makes you a subject.
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And we want to avoid that, people. We sure do.
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So in your own life, how can shifting from consumerism foster your personal autonomy?
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Do you even consider yourself a consumer?
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Everybody buys things, but I mean like a consumer.
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Are you a creator also does it balance out is there a give and take in the way
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you live your life or is it all take take take what about personal autonomy
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that lowers your financial output.
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Yeah, just saving money by cutting things out of your life.
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And I'm not telling everybody to go out and live austere like it's the 1700s.
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I'm just saying, is it that bad?
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Is the alternative really that bad?
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I can tell you now for about four years of my life, I didn't have an automobile.
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I didn't want, I didn't have a driver's license or an automobile.
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Even if I wanted one, I couldn't, I wasn't legally allowed to drive because
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when I was young, I thought I was a race car driver and that didn't last.
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I rode a bike everywhere I went. That was the days when I was a bike messenger. I walked.
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If I was going to the local diner, I rode my bike. If I was going around town
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and if I was going uptown or somewhere, I would take the MARTA train.
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Occasionally I took a bus, but the train and a bicycle got me almost everywhere
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within, in, I don't want to say Metro Atlanta, but you can get pretty well outside
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the belt line, not belt line, the frigging 285 perimeter.
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You can get pretty far outside that on Marta these days, but even back then
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you could too. Yeah, man.
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I thought it was miserable as far as taking a bus anywhere.
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Riding a train, you know, did I think that was miserable? I saw some bizarre
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crap going on on the train.
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Yes, I refer you back to, you know, being a high trust society.
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Like if you're going to intermingle with other humans within society in close
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proximity, you need to be a high trust society for sure.
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But when I was a bicycle messenger and when I was on a bike.
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People, I can tell you this, I was the most fit in my life that I had ever been
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and that I would ever be again during that time.
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And as a bike messenger, you know, I was putting somewhere anywhere between,
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well, slow, slow days, you know, somewhere around 70 miles, really hopping and
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popping days, you know, up to a hundred miles a day.
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And that was a series of sprints, by the way, it wasn't just cruising along nonstop.
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So yeah, man, there's a fitness component there. I was fit. I felt good.
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I don't know. I got sidetracked on that. Yeah. What can you do in your life
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to foster your own independence and reduce your financial output and reduce
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your reliance on external systems,
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be they big corporation and things or government things?
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And why should you embrace this? I just gave you one perfect example is a physical fitness exercise.
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When you're living a little more simply, you're more apt to have a more active lifestyle.
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Just something as simple as walking to the local grocery store or local farmer's
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market or the local cafe or the local art gallery.
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Just walking places will make you more active. of.
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And folks, you'd be amazed at how much money you can save just not putting gas
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in your car twice a week, three times a week.
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Now, look, I know, look, I know there's people that live in the burbs to drive
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to Atlanta every day and you've got an hour and a half one-way commute,
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you know, twice a day. I get it.
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And what we're talking about here though, folks, is little incremental changes, little small bites.
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I'm not trying to tell everybody to go all natural, sell everything you have
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and go Amish or anything.
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But hey, you should check the Amish out and see what they got going on.
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What about mentally? What about some benefits mentally?
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I would say the more complex your life is, the more stress you're probably going
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to carry around. So I'd say the more consumer debt that you have,
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the more stress you're going to have, probably.
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I think money is a big stressor in marriages and things like that.
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I think these people that spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars
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on higher education and then can't pay for those loans, no, they shouldn't be forgiven, by the way.
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However, you find out that your degree does not hold value in the real world,
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and now you're out driving an Uber.
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Off these bizarre debts. Yeah, think about that stuff, the amount of stress
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he can relieve if that was gone away.
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And then, folks, then there's the consumerism, the disposable world comes along with another thing.
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And that other thing is something that's prevalent in today's society,
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and that's instant gratification.
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We want it. We want it now. We get it now.
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Well, mentally speaking, psychologically speaking, emotionally speaking, folks,
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if we can practice restraint, if we can master our base urges and control our impulses,
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and you hedonists out there, you think, well, why should I?
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If I like something, I should do it. It makes me feel good.
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If you deeply and objectively analyze that, you may find it at surface level, most likely.
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You may find that to be surface level.
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Being able to control our impulses, folks, is what separates us from the savages and the animals.
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Having some inner discipline can help you break this consume and dispose cycle
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that we all live in to a degree.
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Yeah. Mastering and controlling your impulses.
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Yep. Yep. And then we build resilience, folks.
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If we can master our impulses and we're more physically fit and we're more mindful
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of just the waste, we can build resilience and that will help us slowly but
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surely build economic freedom.
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And economic freedom, folks, is freedom, like it or not.
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You can be a hippie living in the woods and go as austere as you want to,
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but there's still a level that you need some economic or financial freedom to
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be able to do the things you want.
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As much as I'd love to, we don't live in a society where we can function without some form of currency.
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Now that currency, well, we'll get to it. And in this vein, though, folks,
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if you emphasize and focus quality over quantity with the things that you do
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buy, quality over quantity,
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don't buy cheap stuff knowing that in six months it's going to break and you're
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just going to go buy another one. Yes, it creates waste.
31:22
Yeah, it creates waste. And you can minimize that just by buying more quality
31:26
stuff, even maybe if it costs a little more.
31:29
And we can also, on that note, when we need things, we can get into these groups
31:37
and engage in voluntary exchanges, folks.
31:42
Yeah. Have a neighbor. And me and my neighbor...
31:47
He helps me more than I help him because he's got more lawn equipment and yard equipment than I have.
31:55
I don't know if you guys know this, but attachments for a, like a John Deere
32:00
little small tractor, you know, those, you know, it's starting to like two, 2,000 bucks upward.
32:07
Man, it's crazy, right? Everything costs so much money.
32:11
Thank God my neighbor has good stuff, but I will help him anytime he needs help as well.
32:17
And if you can do these things where you help each other out and where you focus
32:21
on quality over quantity and you minimize your waste and you start to build
32:26
your own autonomy or your own little community of people who are autonomous,
32:31
not depending on outside sources, that
32:35
can help shield you from things we saw during
32:38
the pandemic like supply disruption supply chain
32:42
anytime you try to get anything done during
32:46
that time frame everybody's excuse was supply chain disruptions yeah because
32:54
they were just and it was a tool to be used against you well if you're beyond
32:59
that then you're beyond that yeah and it'll even shield you from inflation.
33:04
Has nothing to do with bartering folks the government
33:07
can't inflate barter because
33:11
they don't have their their greedy hands on it so how do you think do you think
33:16
kind of curbing that consumerism a little bit will give you more control on
33:23
your life maybe is it maybe even a little feeling of accomplishment.
33:30
Not indulging on the things, the wasteful things or the temporary things.
33:36
So I alluded to neighbors, folks, community.
33:40
Voluntary community efforts, not coerced systems.
33:46
Now, what am I referring to when I say a coerced system?
33:50
Folks, community is not communism. I say again, community is not communism,
33:59
even though they share the same root word.
34:02
I mean, voluntarism.
34:05
Voluntarism, good people, is the way. And I'll tell you this,
34:10
if you are an extreme progressive liberal and you vote, you think,
34:14
yes, we need high taxes, we need high taxes to pay for all these programs.
34:19
What is stopping you from voluntarily paying more taxes and letting those of
34:24
us who disagree with that not pay taxes.
34:27
What's stopping you from that?
34:29
Somewhere near half of America does believe in high taxes and government control.
34:36
Somewhere near, allegedly. Well, that's not true.
34:40
Probably closer to about one-fourth of America.
34:45
And then one-fourth of America is probably on the extreme other side of that
34:49
and then probably about half of america is just whatever they don't they're not even engaged.
34:59
Digress. So community does not mean communism. Okay, now back to it.
35:05
Voluntary community efforts, folks.
35:07
So I'm going to push something here. On that note of the voluntary community
35:11
efforts, coming up very soon in November, on 8th November, November the 8th, 2025.
35:19
The Great Create DIY Freedom Festival is coming to Ackworth, Georgia.
35:25
Now I've done the Great create for the past two
35:28
years and yes it's
35:31
a libertarian centric event but what
35:35
that means is nobody's trying to push any ideology
35:38
on you at all but it's a do-it-yourself festival and people there's tables there
35:44
there's lectures and little classes and there's homeschooler types and there's
35:49
mushroom growers and beer brewers and solar powered people.
35:57
And one lady who was there last year, and I wish I could remember her name.
36:02
She is a urban sustainable living sort of guru.
36:07
And I was fascinated with what she had going on.
36:11
And just right now, I cannot put my name on her, put a name to it.
36:18
So I highly encourage you for like tickets are like 32 bucks.
36:22
And I'm going to put a link on, on the show notes here, the great create DIY
36:26
freedom festival, November 8th.
36:29
And that's going to be at, uh, I think George Washington Carver park in, um, in Ackworth.
36:36
So yeah, man, check that out. It is a good time.
36:41
So back to it. What about how can we resource food, food production, right?
36:48
We can grow our own vegetables and fruits and stuff on, especially now,
36:53
I said urban and suburban sustainability, right?
36:57
What about rooftop gardens or balcony gardens?
37:00
You don't have to have a whole acre land to plant some crops,
37:04
you know what I mean? You can do it on a small scale.
37:07
In fact, you should do it on a small scale because natural food just don't keep
37:12
like canned frigging preservative food does.
37:17
Hydroponic systems, community gardens. Here in South Rome, I live in Rome,
37:21
Georgia, and in South Rome, which unfortunately a lot of people consider South Rome the hood.
37:27
Now I've seen a lot of hoods in my day.
37:30
I grew up, you know, all over South Atlanta.
37:33
I grew up, you know, East Point and college park and places like that and i'm
37:38
telling you now south rome is not the hood however there's a community garden
37:43
in south rome and it's a very small it's not even a quarter acre little plot,
37:48
of land but man they got a nice little community garden and the and the little
37:54
individual plots are probably i don't know.
38:01
About 12 feet, 12 by probably six, you know, little plots, kind of little,
38:08
almost raised garden beds a little bit.
38:10
And, and yeah, it does quite well and it's well-maintained and,
38:14
and people get fruits and vegetables and things and, and then whatever seasonal,
38:19
you know, things like that. And it's pretty awesome.
38:21
You can do indoor farms, folks. You can do, if you've got a storage shed,
38:26
you know, you could put LED grow lights in there and you can grow things.
38:30
Uh, and that's, that's little stuff. That's not like, you're not,
38:33
you're not getting your steak right from, from that, but, uh,
38:37
there's ways to do that too, outside of the norm.
38:39
And I, I will tell you there's a cook farm.
38:44
I want to say the cookfarm.com or something in Cedartown.
38:49
Yeah. You want, if you want you and your neighbors,
38:52
if you and three or four other folks go in and buy you can you can buy meat
38:57
or you can buy a cow and they'll process it and you'll have meat for the rest
39:03
of the year now yeah you need a freezer to put that meat in,
39:08
but there's other ways folks there's other ways what about energy conservation
39:12
or generation what how do you generate energy off grid well that's hard but
39:18
almost anything is preferable to getting getting literally raped by Georgia Power every month.
39:27
Technology is not bad, folks. Now, I'm telling you, solar power is coming along.
39:34
I don't think it's there yet, but it will be. But on a small scale,
39:39
little solar panels, little portable chargers, you can stick little solar panels
39:45
out your window to charge your little power, your little devices and stuff.
39:49
You might not be able to run your refrigerator. or your big box freezer on it
39:54
and certainly don't plug up your toaster oven to it but you know little things
39:58
you can do to sort of decrease your power consumption,
40:03
energy efficient appliances yeah you can do that stuff if if you're not opposed
40:10
to technology that stuff costs a little more up front but i think over time it.
40:16
Out the question is is it got long-term reliability
40:19
led lights you know low flow
40:22
plumbing fixtures and things like that something as
40:26
simple as just unplugging all the crap in your house when you're not using it
40:29
that will minimize your power output or consumption and then i know every year
40:35
you know georgia power says stuff like this but like if it's blazing high if
40:40
it's 98 degrees outside and the sun shines directly in your living room,
40:44
close your curtains. That will cut down.
40:48
Insulate your windows. Or if the weather's good, in fall and spring,
40:53
for a very long time, especially in Georgia, you can leave your windows open, folks.
40:58
Now, if you do live in the hood, that might not be the best option,
41:02
but you can leave your windows open. Get natural airflow in there.
41:07
Natural airflow is preferable to air conditioner all day, every day, in my opinion.
41:11
Yeah and then if you're really
41:14
clever you can explore some wind turbines or some little
41:17
micro hydro generators i've seen some cool stuff online where people generate
41:24
their own little bitty sort of hydro generators and you can you know yeah you
41:30
might power your phone you know i don't know it's it's cool though it's a good
41:34
concept and it's good survival stuff and i like it.
41:39
What else what about transportation we talked about
41:42
that earlier yeah man ride a bike cut
41:46
your cut your fuel costs in half simply by riding a bike a couple days a week
41:52
instead of driving if you have the capacity to do that but what if you don't
41:57
what if you live in the burbs deep burbs you know most play most places have
42:02
a ride share parking lot off the interstate somewhere.
42:07
You know do ride share or find a
42:10
group of homies going in the same direction and and
42:13
make it a regular thing you know rotate who drives once
42:16
a week and that'll lower emissions and if
42:20
you're riding a bike that'll that'll boost your health yeah public transportation
42:24
you know people love their cars um i love my cars i got a 73 ford f250 that
42:31
i love it i'm not giving it away i'm not giving it up. I'm keeping it forever until it dies.
42:37
And I'm going to keep it going as long as I can keep it going.
42:40
And only then until it dies beyond repair, am I giving up that truck?
42:46
That truck probably consumes about seven or eight, gets about eight,
42:51
eight, seven or eight miles per gallon, probably.
42:54
It's got 360 in it. It's not efficient at all, but it's got a long bed.
43:00
I can carry a lot of stuff in it.
43:02
And if you put that thing in four wheel drive, you can, you can climb frigging
43:06
Pikes Peak in that thing, but I don't drive it every day.
43:11
I do drive my, my Land Rover and, uh, it's got a, you know, V6 in it.
43:18
Still doesn't get that great a gas mileage, but probably three times the gas
43:23
mileage that my truck gets.
43:25
But I also work from home. yeah man
43:28
carpooling bike things like
43:31
that that's just that's to help that's to
43:35
do your part right do your part and then
43:38
waste management and recycling and composting things
43:42
like that if you start a little compost bin
43:45
then then what can you do how whatever the
43:48
cycle is for that then you can use that stuff just to
43:51
fertilize the other soil around you know what i mean and it
43:54
keeps you from having to go to frigging landfill or to dump here's a
43:57
new word that i'm only learning about
44:00
is upcycle old items now i think
44:03
that's the same as what they used to call repurpose repurpose old
44:07
items old things you know what i mean if you got a old i don't know what if
44:13
you got an old door that is broken or or you know cut that thing down and build
44:20
a table out of it or something or build a cabinet.
44:24
If you got an old, I've seen people use old tires to build like retaining walls.
44:31
Ammo cans. Now, you know, obviously you guys know I came up in the military
44:34
and you acquire ammo cans, folks.
44:38
You just acquire a lot of ammo cans and you can turn.
44:42
I've seen people turn ammo cans into like planters, you know,
44:46
and paint them up, fill them with some some some dirt and topsoil,
44:51
plant some flowers in there and hang, you know, stick them out.
44:53
Yeah, you can repurpose things. You can use them as storage containers.
44:58
If you're like a die-hard you know doomsday prepper
45:01
it's real easy to use an ammo can to put provisions in and then seal that thing
45:08
up yeah you can do a lot of things man can repurpose a lot of stuff repurpose
45:15
a lot of stuff i see one guy had like a windmill,
45:18
that and it was like a it was a bicycle wheel that had had a single single cog
45:24
on it for gear and that gear, you know, connected to another gear and it was a little wind turbine.
45:32
It generated a little energy. It wasn't anything crazy, but hey,
45:35
it was cool. It was a reuse of a thing.
45:39
Yeah. What about clothes? Now, if you don't donate your clothes to the homeless,
45:43
and they're like just ragged clothes, turn them into shop rags,
45:48
you know, make quilts and stuff like that, man. Don't just toss them.
45:51
Yeah. And then Germany, right? When we were in Germany, They don't have grocery bags over there.
45:58
You bring your own bag, period, or you're just carrying all your stuff out.
46:03
But you can do that here in America. You can bring your own bag.
46:06
They'll put the groceries in whatever you want to put them in.
46:09
Yeah, things like that. What about rainwater?
46:12
If you live in the city, can you collect rainwater and use that water?
46:19
Maybe not for drinking. I mean, you can.
46:21
You could filter it and use it for drinking. But what about using it for gardening?
46:24
Or using it for cleaning.
46:26
Instead of running your water in your sink, you use the rainwater that you've
46:31
collected, put a few drops of bleach in that, let it get rid of all the gross
46:35
stuff, and then use that for cleaning your house and cleaning your stuff.
46:41
Yeah, man. Yeah. What about that? A lot of people don't know how a toilet works.
46:47
But all you got to do is throw some, you can turn the water off,
46:50
use your rainwater to fill the tank up. Boom. Gravity flushes.
46:55
Then you just use your rainwater to fill the toilet back up.
46:59
A little effort? Yes, it does. Could you potentially rig up some kind of rainwater
47:04
catch system that actually filters and drains down into your toilet tank? Yeah, you could.
47:12
Yeah, you could. All kinds of things, man. All kinds of things.
47:17
All right. So what about sort of community? What about some economic sort of
47:22
practices that you could do within your community?
47:26
Right what about farmer's markets
47:29
versus you know publics yeah go
47:32
to farmer's market there's every wednesday there's a farmer's market here in
47:35
rome i'm sure most most little places have a farmer's market the stuff is fresh
47:41
usually it's local folks selling their their goods that they themselves have
47:47
grown which is very good that's good that's correct now what are you supposed to do it.
47:52
It's on you, you know, take it home, wash it off, make sure,
47:55
you know, but it doesn't have to go through all this processing that it does at the grocery store.
48:00
Or at least support small producers, like Cook Farms, for instance, or Cook Farm.
48:06
Small producers, folks, the little guy, help them out.
48:10
Now, if you're a business person, you know, it's all about, well,
48:13
how do we scale? How do we scale this?
48:15
Everybody wants to scale and make it bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger.
48:19
At what point does that, I don't know, start being a detractor?
48:27
Yeah, you might be scaling, you might be getting more money,
48:30
but it costs more money to grow as well.
48:32
At what point is it no longer, you've reached your benefit max,
48:40
you know, your cost to benefit ratio, you've maxed it out. What point is that?
48:45
I guess Walmart never reached that, right? They scale, scale,
48:49
scale. They're everywhere. There's Walmarts in Germany, by the way. Yeah.
48:53
I'll tell you what, what about bartering folks, goods and services?
48:57
Now I have many times bartered firearms training for some service.
49:04
Yeah, I have. And if you're willing to barter your goods or services,
49:10
you know, the money's out of the equation.
49:13
That's one, that's a tax benefit, correct?
49:18
Yeah. You know, that's why it's important to be a community-minded person.
49:23
Find out what people in your community do. Yeah.
49:27
You can build little neighborhood groups, as long as it's voluntary,
49:30
folks, as long as it's voluntary, and there's mutual benefit.
49:35
So, yeah, trade your services or even your labor, you know, for things like,
49:42
I don't know, maybe, maybe you can go,
49:46
maybe there's a little old lady down the street who has a big yard and her husband
49:51
died and, but she was a school teacher for, you know, 40 years.
49:55
Maybe she can tutor your kid and you go cut her grass, you know,
50:00
once every couple of weeks.
50:01
And then she tutors your kid, you know, a couple, three times a week.
50:05
And your kid's better for it. Her yard's cut. She don't got to get out and freaking
50:10
have a stroke in the yard.
50:12
And what you had to do is go cut grass for, you know, an hour once every couple
50:16
weeks. Think about that kind of stuff, folks.
50:20
It's, you know, we're so advanced these days and it's lost. Things like that are lost.
50:26
What about this? Little co-ops. So, on every military base I've ever been on,
50:32
now, every military base is its own little unique community, folks.
50:37
Now, there's plenty of people who live off post. True, I always lived off post as well.
50:43
But they had like an auto shop, for instance.
50:47
They had a bay where you could go just and it costs
50:50
i don't know eight or twelve bucks for you to go rent space
50:55
and like a mechanic bay to where
50:58
you could take your car in there it had lift and they had
51:01
all the tools necessary then you could go in and do
51:03
minor repairs on your on your car on your for on
51:06
your own and that yeah there might have been like one mechanic
51:09
on hand who would answer questions for you but he
51:12
didn't work on your car for you he was just there kind of man in the shop you
51:16
go in there and do your thing you know you pay 12 bucks
51:19
and then whatever the parts where you went and bought yourself then you got
51:23
all the use of these tools that would cost you an arm and a leg otherwise to
51:28
to purchase that was brilliant i thought that was a brilliant thing about on
51:33
on but on but base doing that kind of stuff.
51:38
Lending library. There's a little freestanding book lending libraries that are
51:45
around in parks and stuff around here.
51:47
So you walk by and there's no, hey, high trust society, folks.
51:51
This is high trust society stuff.
51:54
You see a book in there that you like, you look at it. Oh man,
51:57
I want to read this. You take it. You read it, you bring it back.
52:01
Yeah, it's very simple.
52:05
I'll look around some of them and they're empty and people just take the books,
52:09
never bring them back. That's low trust.
52:12
That's low trust stuff right there. There's little, there's little,
52:15
what's the word I'm looking for?
52:17
Lending closets on, on army bases. Yeah. This was a thing on army bases.
52:23
Imagine if you will, kind of like a thrift store,
52:27
except you would go in here and you would just sign for, Or if you needed a
52:33
microwave, for instance, you
52:35
didn't have a microwave, you're a young family, you got kids, you know,
52:39
you need a microwave or a toaster oven, you got to sign that thing out, man.
52:43
Hey, I need a toaster oven for a couple of weeks until I can buy one.
52:48
Or I don't know. I don't know if there, I don't remember if there were time
52:51
limits on these things, but yeah, you had to bring it back and clean it up,
52:55
take it back. And then somebody else can use it later.
52:57
They had all kinds of things like that. home appliances, like carpet cleaners, things like that.
53:03
Even refrigerators and kind of like critical items. I mean, everybody really needs a refrigerator.
53:10
Yeah. So think about that. Why can't there be a community lending closet?
53:14
Now, would that be, I don't know. Some people might be too prideful to use that.
53:20
I don't know. And it might be abused. In a low trust society,
53:24
it would probably be used, abused. But anyway, consider it.
53:28
So what kind of personal skills can we acquire for these little lifestyle adjustments? Well.
53:38
Self-repairs. I can tell you this from the time I was a private all the way up to an E6.
53:42
Well, before the whole time, until I went to special forces and even in special forces,
53:48
I had a sewing machine because I had to take pockets on and off of my uniforms
53:55
and sew on name tapes and take name tape. This was all pre-Velcro, by the way.
54:00
I sewed up holes in my clothes because I couldn't afford uniforms,
54:05
even though you got a clothing allowance. Yeah, I get it.
54:08
Learn how to take care of your stuff. You know, learn how to sew things up that
54:13
it still looks nice and normal.
54:15
I used to, I was essentially a bike mechanic for my own bicycles when I was a bike messenger.
54:21
Yeah. You had to keep that thing running because that's how you made the money.
54:24
No bike, no money when you're a bike messenger.
54:27
So you gotta, you gotta keep those things running. Now, yeah,
54:31
if your frame breaks, unless you're a welder, but maybe you could go to the
54:36
local garage and use their welder, you know what I mean? If you know how to use it.
54:41
Learn how to, you know, fix crap around the house. I'm not a good handyman.
54:44
I'll admit it. I'm not a good handyman around my house.
54:47
But if it's a critical thing, you know, if it's a critical thing,
54:50
I will get on that. Do my best.
54:53
But I also like to keep the local economy going, right?
54:58
And then, you know, when I say minimalism, folks, I want you guys to understand
55:02
that this is not like austere living.
55:06
You don't have to live like a caveman or an Afghan to practice minimalism.
55:14
Just once again, quality over quantity, right?
55:18
Have the essentials and have good essentials.
55:24
You kind of curb the consumer. You don't dispose of things and buy them over and over again.
55:31
If you can, here's a good little habit. If you have the means,
55:35
I'll tell you what the pandemic did for me that made me see that because there's
55:41
always some good that comes from a thing.
55:43
Well, the good wasn't the vaccines, that's for sure.
55:47
And it certainly wasn't government mandates of anything.
55:51
But what did happen was people discovered, companies discovered that,
55:56
well, yeah, they could work remotely.
55:59
Now, I believe this to be 100% true. If you can work remotely, folks, why not?
56:05
What's the point of commuting to work if you can do everything sitting at your
56:09
own home office, wearing your PJs, drinking your own coffee with your own dogs
56:17
sitting right next to you at your feet.
56:20
You get on your little Zoom call. You do your little 10-minute morning meet.
56:24
Hey, guys, what's up? Here's our priorities. Here's what we got to accomplish.
56:30
Hit me up no later than 1800 tonight to let me know the status.
56:34
All right, everybody have a great day. Boom, bam, done.
56:38
So many places can do that.
56:42
That during the pandemic and it was functional.
56:46
And I think there's studies out there that prove that you would think you would
56:51
be more distracted at home.
56:53
But I think there's studies that show the opposite of that, where you actually
56:57
get more done even with your own little home distractions because your little
57:03
distractions don't take you away from work necessarily.
57:06
I might be doing a thing. I get up, I go kiss my wife, smack her on the butt,
57:10
pour myself something to drink, pet the dog. You know what I mean?
57:15
Go watch about five minutes worth of news and come sit back down,
57:18
pick right up where I left off.
57:20
But what they discovered also is that you're more apt to work earlier or later
57:26
than you would if you went to work.
57:28
Because imagine this folks, a lot of people, like I said earlier,
57:31
you might have somewhere around an hour, an hour and a half commute one way.
57:36
You're taking that out of your life. That's three extra hours you have in your
57:40
day to be more productive, to be present in your own home, et cetera, et cetera.
57:46
I think that right there was a thing, folks. I think that was a thing.
57:52
And I think that thing needs to stick around for places that can do it.
57:56
You can't be a stay-at-home mechanic, folks. I'm sorry. You can't be a stay-at-home plumber.
58:01
But all these frigging, you know, IT, these consulting, these, yeah.
58:08
All these people that sit behind a computer in a cubicle and have minimal interaction
58:13
with the people in the next cubicle, that's bizarre, man, when you can just do it from home.
58:20
You know, and if you want to bring people together, if you want to meet your
58:22
coworkers, you know, if you're a boss man, you know,
58:26
a month or once a quarter, you know, plan a, plan a get together,
58:31
not even a work get together.
58:33
I mean, like, Hey, let's, we're going to link up at this park.
58:36
We're going to have a, you know, cookout.
58:40
We'll talk a little business. Then we'll play some volleyball,
58:44
blah, blah, blah. Boom, bam, boom.
58:46
You can do it folks. It can be done. And then what's, what else can you do?
58:51
Well, I bring you back to the great create. You can go to workshops or you can
58:55
link up with other groups of people or groups of people who already do the kind
59:02
of things you're considering.
59:03
And you can learn and you can determine is this for you or not.
59:10
Excuse me. Sorry. And then, you know, if it if it takes a political turn,
59:16
if you're in a larger group, you have a more likely chance of influence and policy.
59:22
But the great create, folks, that's where a large group of very smart people
59:27
come together to talk about just alternative networks, folks,
59:32
alternatives to the norm of big consumerism and big waste.
59:44
What about yourself are there some habits that you can think of offhand that you can adapt,
59:51
to to combat this disposable uh lifestyle this disposable society we live in
1:00:00
i don't know man do some research on ben franklin look back at the way the way
1:00:06
he implemented sort of self-empowering changes.
1:00:11
I'm going to give you an analogy here, and this may hit, it may not.
1:00:14
But if you're an action shooter, those of you that come out and shoot with me,
1:00:17
you know that the shot timer is a pretty important thing.
1:00:21
Is it the most important thing? Nah, maybe not, but it's pretty important.
1:00:27
Shoot matches, you know, stages of a match are, are measured in seconds and
1:00:34
tens of seconds and hundreds of seconds, folks.
1:00:37
And inefficient movement, or if you miss a reload or, you know,
1:00:44
you have to, you miss a target and have to go back, that can cost you, you know,
1:00:49
anywhere from, I mean, that could cost you a few seconds or it could cost you,
1:00:53
let's say three quarters of a second, 0.75 seconds.
1:00:57
And you go, ah, 0.75 seconds, boom, no big deal. Well, if you make similar mistakes
1:01:02
over the course of six stages, so do you know what I'm saying?
1:01:08
If I make a 0.75 second mistake three times, that's two and a quarter seconds.
1:01:15
And if I do that in six stages, that's 13 and a half seconds.
1:01:20
Folks, 13 and a half seconds in a USPSA match, it may as well be a lifetime.
1:01:29
People, the top competitors are winning by literal hundreds of seconds.
1:01:35
Maybe a couple, maybe at max, one top grandmaster competitor might beat the
1:01:41
other top Grandmaster competitor by literal one second or half a second.
1:01:49
Yeah. So these hundreds add up to tenths and add up to whole seconds.
1:01:56
And those seconds, boom, they start adding up. They start adding up every little move. Yeah.
1:02:04
True folks when considering these little lifestyle adjustments.
1:02:08
I have a friend and his Instagram
1:02:11
is trail trash dirtbag and he started
1:02:14
a very simple yet very important little
1:02:18
movement and that movement was if you're
1:02:21
out on a trail hiking or riding or walking or
1:02:24
on a sidewalk and you see a piece of trash pick
1:02:28
it up individually that has very little impact you picked up one little piece
1:02:34
of trash in downtown Atlanta and you look it ain't your job right to go around
1:02:40
if you if you decide to pick up all the trash and down you would never have
1:02:45
time to do anything but pick up trash,
1:02:47
but how this is the the hundreds
1:02:51
tenths and whole seconds sort of thing here
1:02:54
if if say out of
1:02:56
the 300 people walking around 10 people witnessed you pick up that trash or
1:03:02
maybe all 300 witnessed it but maybe out of that maybe 10 folks will be like
1:03:07
you know what how hard is it to pick up trash so they'll pick it up too then
1:03:12
let's say a few hundred people saw them do that.
1:03:15
And then, you know, out of that, maybe 10 people saw that from someone else
1:03:19
and were like, oh man, that's a good dude. I should do that.
1:03:22
I want to be a good dude too.
1:03:24
Eventually, your simple act of picking up a piece of trash multiplied into who
1:03:30
knows how many people picking up a piece of trash.
1:03:33
Next thing you know, you've had an impact on your community cleanliness and
1:03:37
then just the general culture of your community.
1:03:39
Yeah. Think about that.
1:03:42
And follow trail trash dirt bags.
1:03:44
So what's some practical things, folks? Practical things we can do to live sustainably
1:03:49
at Ben Franklin level wisdom, right? Ben Franklin level wisdom.
1:03:56
First, you got to always, I don't care what the topic is, you always have to
1:04:01
examine yourself, right?
1:04:04
Consumption and find ways where you as an individual can gain independence from unnecessary things.
1:04:16
I don't want to go so far as to relating it to addiction, but some people are
1:04:22
addicted to consumerism and materialism.
1:04:25
And it's almost like that. You're almost breaking free from an addiction if
1:04:30
you can stop going out to eat all the time. I have a problem with that.
1:04:35
If my wife doesn't feel well, I just go to the wife's house, man. Yeah.
1:04:42
And then I said it a few times throughout. Personal ethics, folks,
1:04:46
you've got to be a trustworthy person to help our society become a high-trust society.
1:04:56
Just like with someone seeing you pick up trash, it might influence others to pick up trash.
1:05:02
You be trustworthy and others will want to be trustworthy.
1:05:07
Barter and share resources voluntarily, folks. Offer up resources voluntarily
1:05:12
if you have resources and you know someone else doesn't.
1:05:17
All this without any government mandates. All this without any regulation, folks.
1:05:23
All right. Build community networks. Folks, yeah, I take you back again to the great create.
1:05:29
That is a community of humans that, one, they're great humans.
1:05:34
Two, the scope of their knowledge on just various things is humbling and astonishing.
1:05:44
I have my own little piece of that, but I'm blown away at how brilliant some
1:05:49
of these other people are.
1:05:50
And that folks that that supports
1:05:54
our first amendment of free association right i
1:05:57
don't need the government telling me who i can and can't get you know in in
1:06:01
life friggin who i can and can't get life advice from yeah freedom of association
1:06:11
learn build a network build an alternative network of people that you trust,
1:06:17
that you can rely on and that can rely on you. Yeah. Yeah.
1:06:22
And if you're new to all this and you're living in this consumer lifestyle and
1:06:27
you're going to work every day in the city and you're like, man, this is just madness.
1:06:33
You know, how can you, as someone new to this?
1:06:37
How can you start finding ways to reduce reliance on external goods?
1:06:44
You can, but how can you?
1:06:48
Yeah. How can you be more self-reliant and not rely on some external system?
1:06:55
So urban sustainable living, it's possible. Suburban sustainable living.
1:07:00
Now, notice I didn't talk much about rural sustainable living.
1:07:04
Folks, there's people out there doing it. There's people out there doing it
1:07:08
every day. They got them five acres or 10 acres of land.
1:07:12
They've got their own water procurement. They've got livestock roaming around on their property,
1:07:20
a couple of goats, handful of chickens yeah there's people out there doing it
1:07:25
it takes work to do folks but urban sustainable yeah you're not gonna have a
1:07:29
cow in your midtown apartment.
1:07:34
But the goodness of the of what wanting to do this thing in an urban environment
1:07:39
is it will force some creativity and ingenuity yeah yeah and you will be able
1:07:45
to once you start like seeing these little alternatives that you can do in a
1:07:50
city environment, it's going to blow your mind.
1:07:53
You're going to be like, man, this is possible. This is possible. It's doable.
1:07:56
The city is just one big place that it's just a consumerism and disposal and consume, right?
1:08:07
Dispose and consume. It's just the city encourages that.
1:08:12
Dispose and consume. Now there's little communities who really get into trying
1:08:16
to do things, but still any, any major urban environment is a dispose and consume
1:08:22
environment, man. It's just constant.
1:08:24
Well, turn, look at that, start to recognize that and then turn that into,
1:08:30
you know, opportunities for yourself to, to break away.
1:08:34
Yeah. Take small steps, folks, you know, start with your little living in an
1:08:40
apartment building, start with your neighbor, man.
1:08:42
And then spread to other tenants in the building.
1:08:45
Yeah. And see how you guys can help each other and consume less.
1:08:51
I'm not telling you to go burn all your possessions.
1:08:54
I absolutely abhor, abhor the song Imagine by John Lennon.
1:09:00
Yeah, I do. I think John Lennon was a big giant communist and i and i do not
1:09:08
imagine no possessions or yeah.
1:09:14
You should have possessions. You should have things that you want, folks.
1:09:19
But as your want and need, you definitely should have things you need.
1:09:25
But am I telling you you shouldn't have things that you want? No, I'm not.
1:09:30
If you have a car because you like, if you like your 65 Mustang,
1:09:36
I'm not telling you get rid of your 65 Mustang.
1:09:38
I'm saying, you know, instead of driving it to work every day,
1:09:42
you know, on Tuesdays and thursdays you know
1:09:46
leave her in the garage and ride your bike that's what
1:09:48
i'm saying i happen to like motorcycles now i
1:09:52
had a really nice motorcycle and i had to sell it you know for various
1:09:55
reasons but i'm not telling you get rid of your stuff i'm
1:09:59
just saying downsize where you can where it's practical and recognize what's
1:10:03
excess and and what's not because i'll say it again excess ain't rebellion you're
1:10:10
just drinking what they're selling do those things bring you genuine fulfillment.
1:10:14
Yes or no? Think about that.
1:10:16
Genuine fulfillment. If not, walk away from it.
1:10:21
Yeah, that's it, folks. If the things you possess don't bring you genuine fulfillment,
1:10:27
get rid of them and do things that do bring you genuine fulfillment.
1:10:32
All right, folks, that was the episode. Thanks for listening to it.
1:10:35
You know, I'm not an expert at all on this subject matter.
1:10:40
I know people who are, but I think it's very relevant today.
1:10:46
Every time I look at my power bill, I think it's relevant today. Yeah. Yeah.
1:10:52
Yeah, my wife and I are trying to work maybe. We're trying to figure out how
1:10:56
we're going to keep some animals and do some things like that.
1:10:59
And I encourage people to do it.
1:11:02
I encourage people to venture out there and try things, man.
1:11:07
For the environment's sake, sure. For financial sake, sure. For independence, absolutely.
1:11:15
For financial independence, yep, absolutely. Absolutely.
1:11:19
For minimizing government interference, yep, 100%. All those things, folks.
1:11:27
And again, I'm going to have the Great Create website in the show notes.
1:11:32
Again, November 8th in Ackworth, Georgia. I want to say tickets are $32.
1:11:38
There's probably opportunity if you're a business owner and you're interested,
1:11:42
there's probably opportunity to sponsor the event.
1:11:44
There's probably an opportunity to get a table at the event if you do things
1:11:49
in the vein of, you know, self-reliance and independence and sort of classical
1:11:54
liberal ideals and things like that.
1:11:57
Yeah. And worst case, come out and hear me give a lecture on building alternative
1:12:03
networks or, you know, I don't know.
1:12:06
I'm doing two lectures. I'm not sure what the other one's going to be,
1:12:10
but one's definitely going to be alternative networks.
1:12:13
So, yeah, minimum, come out to Ackworth. Come out to, I think it's going to be on the lake.
1:12:18
And come out and have some good chow and some barbecue and see some interesting people.
1:12:25
Meet some interesting people and do some, you know, learn. Learn some things.
1:12:29
And if you're just a hardcore right wing or a hardcore left wing,
1:12:35
then come out and observe the weirdos.
1:12:39
See what we got going on in the middle there.
1:12:44
Yeah. Come see what we got going on in the middle. All right, good people.
1:12:49
At this point, I'm ranting. So thank you so much for listening to the episode.
1:12:52
Thank you so much for sticking with me.
1:12:54
Thank you so much, California, for being the second highest listenership behind
1:13:00
my home state of Georgia.
1:13:01
And thank you so much, Ireland, for being the second higher listenership behind
1:13:05
my home country of America.
1:13:07
I love all you guys. I appreciate all you guys.
1:13:11
Be good to each other. Have good manners. Yes.
1:13:13
Music.