Author: alibey

Human contact is not all what they make it out to be.

Memorial weekend is half over.
This means that by Tuesday, most of the snowbirds will have cleared out. My isolated corner of South Florida will again be mine.

Between the heat and humidity and the swarms of no-seeums, hardly anyone comes by my neck of the woods — which is literally where I live — any more.

No more asshole golf cart drivebys.
No more bicycle, power walking, or dog-walking assholes infesting the circle in the cul-de-sac where my villa is located.

I am almost completed free of the need to look at or come in contact with any other human beings — unless I choose to.

This is of course a misanthrope’s paradise.
My 80lb German Shepherd, the one with the fierce teeth, keeps eternal vigil.
Anyone who dares come too close gets the business.
Just the way I like it.

I have not trained her to do so, but she will not tolerate anyone coming near me or the house unless I explicitly let her know that I allow it.  She is like a living ADT alarm system that goes wherever I go.  More than just an alarm, she will bite your arm off if you make one false move in my direction.

This morning I woke up early as usual and played my accoustic guitar outside in the lanai that is attached to the back of my house. Suddenly the songbirds in the forest around me started up, almost like a choral backing to my playing.

The world is continuing on with whatever it does… all the usual storm and fury that, as usual, signifies nothing — at least to me.
I am now completely insulated from the need to respond to anything or anyone, unless it is on my terms.
My focus is very simple.
Lose weight, and fix up the new house I bought.
Nothing else matters.

I don’t care if the US federal budget bill is going to be passed, or some attorney general in Texas has been impeached, or how the Ukraine war is going, or which film won the Palme D’Or this year.
I don’t care if DeSantis is down in the pols or Trump is going to be arrested or party boy Boris is having in trouble again or if Erdogan is going to be reelected.
I have almost completley detached — from everything.
My ideas of being au courant is to skim newspaper headlines online.
Instead, I read books on Arabic language philology, a subject I find fascinating, listen to commercial-free XM Sirius radio when driving my dog to the beach, cook healthy natural meals for my wife and I, and gradually increase my workout regimen.

I have finally reached a stage in my life where it matters not one iota to me what the world does — payback, I supposed, for a lifetime spent in obscurity, where what I thought, felt, wanted, and hoped for was ignored by society at large.

A lifetime were I was constantly reminded — as most of us are — of how inconsequential I was to everyone else.
A lifetime where assholes big and small tried to strut their crap at my expense, always trying to remind me, directly or indirectly, by playing tedious asshole games designed to demonstrate that they were the ones who truly mattered.

And now, at the end of the day, they can drown in their endless, pointless, self-serving bullshit.

How enormously liberating it is to have the luxury of being able to focus exclusively on just the things that matter to me.

Knowing that oceans of tears are unlikely to be shed when I eventually die, I am absolutely free to pursue whatever I want whenever I want on my own terms without having to justify this to anyone.

The deer, the woodpeckers, the eagles, the bobcats and the boar — all of which abound in the preserve that surrounds me — are a thousand times more interesting than anything some random, nattering TV talking head can ever aspire to be.

Freedom, real freedom, is needing no one else for anything.
It is not just self-reliance.

It is not just not having to suck up to some boss, or feeling compelling to pursue some other person for sex or companionship or psychological validation.

It is in fact the deliberate and final severance of all but the most necessary, minimal human contact.
All it takes is just enough money to never have to depend on anyone else for anything ever again.

I suppose that is one possible path to contentment: not caring anymore about anything any one else thinks and just doing your thing, whatever that may be — so long as it harms no one else.