No. Just no .

Still alive, but just so. Still alive. I am well and healthy and I still got a home. Not much to eat, no heating, no electricity. 

And just recently, I have to admit, I gave up. Gave in to despair. I mean, I have no perspective and there is no such thing as a future. After the pandemic a worlwide economical crisis will take place, and climate change will take care of what is left. 

Yes, I gave in to despair. Just refused to get out of bed for some days. 

But then it occurred to me, not exactly all of a sudden. 

On the one hand, we are all fucked. I have to pay taxes on money I do not have and will never get. It is a criminal system of corruption, where the rich prey on the poor and if you are rich, you get richer still, and if you are poor, that little money you have is taken from you. 

On the other hand there are the Plebejans shouting revolution, the raving mob wanting to turn things upside down, the intellectuals, too, wasting time and energy on futile and idle discussions. 

And, do not get me wrong. Not technology will save us now. We are faced with a cataclysm. You cannot argue with a virus, and you cannot argue with climate change. 

I have fought for 30 years now to prevent this time from becoming. I lost. I would do everything just the same as I did, could I do it all all over again. I have no regrets, and I am prepared to die. For most of us will die, and soon. Do not get me wrong, I love to live. It is just not very probable that I or the next guy or my loved ones will. 

That said, I am faced with but a really tiny shred of life left. And so I say no. 

I say no to your society, your petty dreams and your blahblah. I wear my mask and disinfect my hands and stay away from people. I care for my loved ones, but everyone else is a potential danger. I also say no to the raving mob and your Nazi paroles, your politics and stoopid endeavours. I say no to your consumerism. You only deserve my utter contempt, because you are not capable of making things with your hands. 

Oh, I still do not wish anyone anything bad. I just do not care anymore. People are, for the most part, toxic and contagious in more than one sense. 

There are things I care for, however. Knowing things can make you rich. 

Now, it was winter, and I collected some Chaga. I seldom drink coffee these days, because I do not get the point why I should bother if I can find something better in the woods. 

When collecting the fungus, I thought "well, isn't it a shame that you have to still drink your tea from a Kuksa you bought? Now do not get me wrong, I bought my Kuksa from a very nice young Finnish lady who dated me for a cuppa afterwards on the expo, and ever since I heaped fond memory upon fond memory into the notion of it, so nothing wrong with it really. I will keep using it, too, it is nothing at all like being dogmatic. But still, I somehow never made myself one, and I feel a bit like it is an apprentice piece for any bushcrafter. I just wanted to know, too. 

So I just fired away and made myself one. I made it in the woods, deep in the woods, in fact, and was at it well into the night, while the foxes were yelping and tawny owls were hooting and I think an odd eagle owl, too. I took this as a sign, somehow. I made the cup from nothing special, just some humble birch wood. Made some mistakes, too, but it still worked out. I also got the whittling bug bad again. There is a kind of beauty to the simplicity of sitting in the woods making things with simple implements. If you get into that zone, if you get into the flow, everything just falls into place and suddenly you realize that life is meant to be this way, not.... whatever the sorry mess is that we created. Life is meant to take place under trees. Do not get me wrong, that does not mean to be idle, in the contrary. It just means doing something that actually even makes sense for a change, hard work or no. 

The other day I went to the woods again, and my despair was nowhere to be found. I prepared some scales out of broom, made myself another baton.... 

... And worked on the kuksa. Now I carved a triquetta in, and oiled it some. 

But, as I said, I got that bug bad again. My laid father did an awful lot of woodworking, even more than smithing, and I grew up with it, and it is a bit like shaking hands with an old friend. And I am really stoked on it at the moment. Also it is a bit of a stinky finger into the face of the world, since most of the tools I also made myself. 

The Kuksa being in good order I also started a small bowl and a dish, and it felt really good... 

To have tea while carving from the cup I just had made. 

Actually I know that these things are not the best there are, but they must not be in the first place. It was all made from scraps. Even my tools were, for the most part, made from junk, as you well know. 

Society has proven through time that it does not want me. A long time I thought this was because I was inferior. 

But the people that kept judging and ostracizing and spiting and mobbing me just now are showing that they are utterly inkompetent at living. They stacked up big time, so much in fact, that the ship is sinking. 

If the ship is sinking, jump. 

Jump and swim, swim as far away from the ship as you possibly can, in order not to be drowned in the downward draft. 

I suggest you ask people who never belonged. Learn from indigenous people, with respect. They have, if anyone has, one key to a possible survival of our species. 

Run from capitalism and communism alike. 

Ask the woods. Help them, for we owe them dearly, and come humbly. 

And do not forget that some things even now do not change. Make something good with your hands. Build a garden, a homestead or a farm, plant a tree, carve, forge or build a house, tile a roof. 

But get a life. Switch off the Phone or Computer. 

 The cranes return. 

Spring is on its way. ☺️ ❤️ 

Take care, care for the elderly, the weak, and for those who had bad luck. Thank you.