The Pedestrian Level

Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.

G.K. CHESTERTON

I do not know where my love for all things basic began. I can identify some stepping stones. One of those stepping stones came after my accident. They gave me a list of games that were good for brain rehab and development. One of those games was chess. I thought I would play that game until I realized that I could never play the game before my accident. I have never won a chess game in my life except the one where I cheated against a friend I was playing through email. I let the chess computer pick my moves against him. I never told him I cheated. Otherwise, I am a total loser at chess.

Checkers was also on the list, and I have won some checkers games. I decided that was my game, but I also wondered why checkers was hidden in the shadow of chess. The answer is that checkers is considered a pedestrian game for children and beginners and old men down at the barbershop or the general store. Regardless, checkers is my game, and I play it often against the computer online. I find it way more fun than chess.

I wondered if there were pedestrian levels in other activities, and there are. With golf, you have disc golf and mini-golf. Both cost a fraction of the big game mainly because you don't need to buy a thousand dollars worth of golf clubs. With bowling, you just raise those gutter guards to keep the ball in the lane. With cycling, it is the beach cruiser instead of the high end mountain bike/road bike/triathlon bike. With surfing, it is the bodyboard or boogie board instead of the stand up surfboard.

The bottom line with the pedestrian level is that you can have fun with little money or skill. Who would be against this? This would be the gatekeeper. A gatekeeper is someone who tries to block your entry to an activity because you didn't pay the entry fee or membership fee which is usually expensive equipment. This would be the ham radio operator going on CB radio (illegally) and telling everyone that they are breaking the law. Why do they do this? Because it burns them up that someone can buy a cheap CB from Walmart or a truck stop and talk on a radio without a license. Yes, the gatekeeper is this petty.

The flip side of the gatekeeper is the fool who does pay that expensive membership fee for an activity he only pretends to enjoy. The rest of the time is spent parading around the equipment and pretending that he belongs to a tribe of elites. For them, the pleasure comes down to buying things and not owning things. Boat owners are notorious for this sort of thing as they haul around boats that never touch the water.

I am committed to keeping things at a pedestrian level in my life. I will keep playing checkers and playing the kazoo. I don't care to ride a bike anymore, but I will get a beach cruiser from Walmart if I do. I will stick with my CB radio and have no plans to get my ham "ticket." I will eat basic food from the grocery store and Taco Bell because I am not a "foodie." I watch action movies and westerns instead of art films. Ultimately, I enjoy life at this pedestrian level. That is the dirty secret of the gatekeepers. You can have fun without the deep commitment and the expensive toys. They know this, but they have to plunge their heads into the black hole of denial. You go have some fun, Gentle Reader. You don't need anyone's permission.

Burn Your Bucket List And Kill Your Fantasy Self

And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun.

ECCLESIASTES 2:11 DOUAY-RHEIMS

A bucket list is usually a list of places and adventures a person wants to visit and do before kicking the bucket. When I was in my twenties, I was keen on the bucket list mentality. I decided that I wanted to do things like run a marathon, thru hike the Appalachian Trail, learn to surf, go skydiving, and see the Great Pyramids. Most of these bucket list ideas came from the pages of Outside magazine. The reality is that I spent more time reading the magazine than doing any adventures.

I did do one thing on my bucket list of adventures. I went to West Virginia to do some whitewater rafting. I would end up doing this twice. Two times was enough. I never went on that particular adventure again. I imagined it was going to be more fun than it turned out to be. The reality is that I enjoyed one of those fake white water rides at an amusement park like Dollywood more than the real thing.

Nobody ever considers amusement parks as bucket list items, but they should. Those parks are safer and cheaper and give you the same thrills minus the misery of traveling on foot and sleeping on the ground. At my present age, I don't care to even visit amusement parks. I burned my bucket list by the time I exited my twenties.

I replaced my bucket list with a reading list of armchair adventures. I have found that I would rather read about someone else's adventures than have my own. This is why I still liked reading Outside magazine even though I never went anywhere. You can go anywhere with a book, and I did. One of my favorite pleasures was reading Paul Theroux travel books. I discovered Theroux through the magazine.

Bucket lists are vanities. They are a way of fooling ourselves into thinking we are living authentic experiences. The reality is that life is 90% boredom punctuated by periods of intense crisis. This doesn't change on an adventure. Most adventures are just terribly boring. This is why people take books with them on vacation and read them on the beach or the back porch of their mountain cabins. What a waste of time and money.

The point of a bucket list adventure is to have fun. The problem is they sell you the surfboard when you would have more fun on a boogie board. Why would you buy the surfboard? This is where vanity creeps in. People brag about their golf games but not their mini-golf games. All bucket list adventures have this vanity aspect. They are not done for enjoyment but for bragging rights. If you tend to be humble and modest, you end up having more fun than the vain and serious.

This brings us to a similar topic which is the fantasy self. The fantasy self is what you would be with washboard abs, 3 Ph.D.'s, knowing 7 languages fluently, and being able to sword fight. We can go on and on here with the "achievements" that comprise the fantasy self, and I think we have all suffered from this fantasy self delusion at some point in our lives.

For me, I killed my fantasy self when I decluttered all my Spanish language books and learning materials. I took Spanish in high school and college and wanted to actually become fluent in the language. I still think it is a valuable skill to have living in the Western hemisphere. I was going to follow up with learning Portuguese and French which would cover my half of the globe. But I woke up one day deep into middle age and concluded that I was never going to get that done. This is because I didn't need to know Spanish along with algebra, trig, calculus, and physics. This is because I never needed to know those things one single time in my life. It has never come up. If it ever does, I will take up learning it then because somebody is going to pay me to know it and use it. Otherwise, I focus on learning to garden and do basic home repairs.

The vanity of the fantasy self comes from Aristotle and the concept of the Renaissance Man who knew many things to a high degree of excellence. The reality is that I know virtually no renaissance men at all. I just know specialists who indulge some weekend hobbies to a level of mediocrity. Right now, that weekend hobby is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But I digress. . .

I don't have a fantasy self. My role models are Jesus Christ our Lord and Saint Joseph. Neither one of them was a renaissance man. They were carpenters which means they were blue collar. I imagine their lives centered around prayer and work. This fact is why I don't care to live chasing the excellence of Aristotle. Holiness is hard enough.

Bucket lists and fantasy selves are vanities. Life is too short for such things. Go ahead and let yourself off the hook and embrace the reality that you aren't going to do these things that are not worth doing. Simplify your mind and life by disposing of this garbage. You will find relief when you do. I know I did.

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My Hate Affair with Bucket Lists

https://freemattpodcast.wordpress.com/2025/06/10/my-hate-affair-with-bucket-lists/

Charlie's Blogging Tips

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

I have been blogging for about 20 years now. I don't think I am an expert on blogging, and I don't know how to make money with a blog which is the tip most people want to know. I just know what has worked for me for the last 20 years as the result of trial and error.

1. Write what you know.

Don't write what you think people want to read or what will sell. I think each person has something unique to offer to the public. Virtually every person I know has their one thing they know well. It could be fly fishing or kazoo playing or whatever. Whatever you know, someone else can benefit from it. Go ahead and write it down.

2. Write in simple sentences.

People have been complimenting me on my writing since middle school, but there is no secret to writing well. I write simple sentences. I don't pick the biggest words, and I seldom use adjectives. I just write those true sentences that Hemingway was talking about.

3. Don't write about people in your personal life.

Once upon a time many years ago, I had a post that included a picture of a co-worker in a state of inebriation and his full name. Sometime later, he begged me to remove it, and I did. That picture was giving him all sorts of grief in his work life. That was not my intention, but I learned to not do that anymore. Sometimes, I do write about people in my personal sphere, but they get a nickname instead of a real name. The only reputation I care to damage is my own.

4. Publish on a schedule.

This schedule could be daily, weekly, monthly, or whatever. Choose a schedule and stick to it. Since my accident, I have learned that publishing weekly is all that I can manage. Daily publishing is out of the question. Sometimes, it takes a whole week for me to write one of these posts.

5. Delete your combox.

I love comboxes, but they have to be managed. Otherwise, bad things can happen and will happen. I don't have the time or energy to police a combox or pre-approve comments. I took the cue from Leo Babauta to simplify my life and get rid of the combox. I miss the comments, but we can't always have nice things.

6. Have a simple blog title.

I have been watching Levi Hildebrand's issues over the copyrighted "Future Proof" brand he was building for his YouTube channel. If you have a brand dedicated to tearing down other brands, someone is going to tear down your brand. Levi finally settled on using his own name. I could have told him that from the beginning.

Our channel got shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GOJjkM6A9k

For some reason, people think they have to have a clever title for their blog, podcast, YouTube channel, etc. Oftentimes, it isn't clever at all but just stupid. If it is clever, someone probably already owns it. I recommend using your own name or using a pseudonym if you want to be anonymous. This also allows you to write what you know as a titled blog is usually dedicated to a single topic.

7. Don't write clickbait titles for blog posts.

Punking your readers is not a good way to build a following. Tricks and gimmicks work for a bit, but you are left with those tricks and gimmicks. Focus on writing the best content you know which goes back to writing that one true sentence Hemingway recommended. That one true sentence isn't clickbait.

8. Don't self promote on social media.

I did this for a season on Facebook until I realized I was spending more time on Facebook than on my blog. I even considered deleting the blog and being entirely on social media. I am glad I didn't do that. Today, I have eschewed all social media. This blog is as social as I get. If someone likes the content, they can post the link on their social media. I just write the content and promptly forget about it.

9. Don't be professional.

I try to keep a homemade quality here at the C-Blog. I use pictures from my flip phone. I will hand draw memes. I will do my own artwork in MSPaint. People can find that professional content somewhere else.

10. Eschew AI.

I see an inhuman future coming where people don't write anymore but let ChatGPT do the work for them. That's why I added "100% human generated content" to my tagline at the top of the blog. I know how to write. I want to keep writing alive in the 21st century.

Gentle Reader, that is all I have for blogging tips. I hope you found them helpful and educational.

UPDATE: After you write a blog post, you may find you have additional thoughts on the topic. I took a cue from Columbo with his "one more thing" tagline which came from the clever way the scriptwriters would go back and add in something they missed. You can do the same thing with your blog posts by tacking on updates to published posts like this one here. The downside is that some people may miss the updates. I recommend checking back on your favorite posts for those updates. This also liberates me to hit publish on posts that are not quite perfect. If I waited for perfection, you would have nothing to read, Gentle Reader.