Sunday Funday

Six days shalt thou labour, and shalt do all thy works. But on the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: thou shalt do no work on it, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy beast, nor the stranger that is within thy gates.

EXODUS 20:9-10 DOUAY-RHEIMS

Sunday is my writing day. I am not feeling like writing at the moment. I have ambitious things I can work on, but I don't have the energy for that today. Someone once said that if you are suffering from writer's block then you should write about writer's block. I am going to write about writing. I may write about some other things along the way.

The great mystery of my accident is that God spared my writing ability. He was not so kind to my working ability. I would trade this writing thing for the working thing in a heartbeat. Work puts food on the table. Writing just keeps you from blowing money on frivolous toys, hobbies, and pleasures.

I could write every single day of my life, but it would be the only thing I did with my life. I have to use my energy wisely because I have to keep living and not be a burden on my already overburdened wife. During the week, I do not write except to jot down notes for writing ideas. Before my accident, I would just start writing whenever I had an idea. I tried to do that after the accident and discovered the foolishness of that strategy. Writing is exhausting work, and I have daily chores and errands that need tending. I can barely do those at my present energy levels. A day job is out of the question because I would be wiped out just trying to get to that job.

I hate my life. I can't beat around the bush on that. This is not what I wanted for my life. Work gave me dignity and purpose in my life. Now, the bulk of my day is spent in a dark room with my eyes closed trying to destimulate and build up the energy to do an hour of yard work. I was walking almost daily, but I hurt myself this year because of my poor coordination. Both the walking and the yard work have suffered. I go into screaming fits if I think too much about it.

My priest gave me acceptance as my penance at my last confession. There were no Hail Marys and Our Fathers. He just told me to learn acceptance. My brain damage is my penance in this life. I have to accept it.

I am exhausted now and need to stop writing. I don't know when I will get back to this post. You, Gentle Reader, do not know what is going on behind the scenes. You get a finished product to read with no clue as to what it took to get it written. Many of these posts have taken weeks, months, and even years to complete.

I am now back to this post except I find that I don't have anything to add to what I've already written. I try not to whine about the TBI, but I find that not talking about it leads people to think I am normal or miraculously cured. A few minutes in person with me dispels that pretty quickly. I am exhausted now, and I am abandoning this post where it is now.

Sartorial Considerations

When a man dresses like a boy on the outside, there’s a chance there’s some stunted development on the inside.

BRETT MCKAY

I do not dress like a boy. I used to dress like a boy until I married a woman who dressed like a woman. I said goodbye to the T-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals. I am proud to say that I have never owned or worn a pair of Crocs.

I do have issues with those who agree with me that men shouldn't dress like boys but should dress with some sort of finery that doesn't fit with the man. The person that comes to mind is a lunatic woman blogger who claims Catholic conversion but dresses like a total Protestant with a loud hat and all the rest. She somehow didn't get the memo about Catholic modesty. The other people that come to mind are the men on YouTube who dress in three piece suits like some latter day English fops.

I am not terribly interested in how other people dress. Clothes are not my thing. I developed my blue collar fashion strategy years ago, and it is still working for me. But I do want to list the sartorial considerations that go into the decision making of what to wear.

1. Comfort

Comfort is the reason so many men dress like boys now. Athletic wear is the prime component of this trend. Senator Fetterneck is the poster boy for taking this too far. But if you saw the guy at Walmart on a Saturday dressed in shorts and a hoodie, do you even care? I know I don't even if I personally refuse to wear this stuff outside of the house. (I have an ancient Carhartt hoodie that I call the "house hoodie" because I never wear it outside except to the mailbox to check the mail hoping the neighbors don't see me.)

The argument is that this comfort wear is too casual for wearing in the general public. I admit that seeing some hood rat wearing socks and slides in the store is off-putting. But are a pair of camo Crocs on a redneck any better? Or, what about the hippie chick wearing her Birkenstocks?

2. Utility

Utility is the reason I dress like a blue collar worker. Workwear allows you to do physical work. Sad to say, many blue collar workers have taken to wearing comfort clothes for work instead of work clothes. That tells you all you need to know about the work ethic and mindset of that guy. I am a fan of the work uniform. It could be hospital scrubs or a chef's outfit. Just because you work for a living doesn't mean you should dress like a bum. You should dress like a worker.

3. Respect

Respect has to do with modesty and reverence. This is why women shouldn't wear Daisy Dukes to church or to the office. People in office occupations and professional jobs should dress the part. I don't expect the president to dress like a janitor.

4. Vanity

Vanity is where people end up dressing in a costume. They might cite other reasons like the ones already listed, but we know better. If you're wearing a leather jacket without a motorcycle, you are wearing a costume. The same goes if you dress up like Tom Wolfe or Roger Stone. And the lady I mentioned earlier is firmly in this category even if she is in denial over it.

I don't know where the line is between respect and vanity. Show up at a funeral in a baby blue tuxedo with the ruffles in front, and you will find that line exists. You should never wear a costume unless it is on the stage, or you are doing singing telegrams. The problem is that these people have no clue that they are wearing costumes.

The costume wearers love to express shock and disgust at the casual wear of virtually everyone else because they want attention and credit for wearing their costumes. This is not modesty. Modesty doesn't seek to be noticed.

For myself, I seek to dress in a way that does not call attention to myself. I tend to blend in with those around me. I don't want to stand out in any way but dress like an age appropriate normie who knows his place as a member of the working class.

***

Men Don’t Dress Like Boys

https://www.artofmanliness.com/style/clothing/men-don-t-dress-like-boys/

Blue Collar Fashion Guide

https://charliebroadway.blogspot.com/2018/09/blue-collar-fashion-guide.html

The Achilles Heel Of Charlie's Grand Unifying Theory

We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.

THOMAS EDISON

To begin, I must restate my Grand Unifying Theory. There is a simple and effective solution for every endeavor. I have spent a lot of blogging on the GUT because it is my overarching thesis in thought and life. The Gentle Reader should have picked up on the idea that the GUT runs through all of my thoughts and writing. I am a man in search of simple and effective solutions. I am not in search of perfect solutions because I do not believe they exist. I can point to the flaw in every one of my strategies. These flaws do not trouble me because I think they are inescapable. There is one flaw that runs through all of my GUT strategies. This is the requirement for work.

I don't have sophisticated solutions for life. I like to refer to my GUT strategies as "blue collar." This begs a question. What does a white collar solution look like? White collar solutions are where a sophisticated type comes up with complicated schemes of working smarter instead of working harder. Virtually all of these schemes amount to sticking the work to someone else while Mr. Sophisticated takes his cut. I could write volumes about these parasites, but I save that for other posts. The most deleterious effect of the white collar solutions is that they beguile the public into thinking that all problems are complex and require complex solutions. This isn't true.

I do not believe in work purely for the sake of work. I am not going to dig a hole just to fill it in again. This is madness. Everything I do must have a purpose or a telos. Conversely, I do not believe that you can escape work. When you do nothing, nothing is all you get. The secret is to find the golden mean between doing nothing and doing something that is worthless. My blue collar strategies aim for this mean. The way I achieve it is through doing what is simple and effective.

The aggravation of my life today is the chronic exhaustion that comes with being the survivor of a traumatic brain injury. I have found that the first and most important thing is to take as much off of your plate as you can. This is why I don't pursue various hobbies, interests, and ambitions. I don't have the energy for that anymore. Consequently, I don't do anything except what is absolutely and fundamentally necessary. I am used to saying no to everything.

All of those extraneous things belong to what I call "thrive mode." Thrive mode was my lifelong dream that was always thwarted by the lack of time, money, and energy. The loss of my energy has made me accept that the rest of my days will be lived in "survive mode." I don't know how I feel about that. I have had almost seven years to come to terms with that. I wanted to do big things in my life. I am left with doing small things.

A good illustration is the McMansion. Many women dream of having a big home, so they buy one with a hefty mortgage payment. To make those payments, her husband is tasked with working his tail off to afford and maintain her dream. On her end, she is tasked with trying to keep that McMansion clean. The size of the place is tremendous work, so she concludes she needs to hire outside help for the task. This help is not cheap, and the husband is already maxed out with his job. So, the wife ends up taking a job to pay for the work she doesn't want to do. You can see the absurdity here. Why not choose to live in a smaller and simpler home?

For me, a sudden tornado destroyed the McMansion of my life and left me living in an RV camper on the lot of the destroyed home. The disaster is a curse but also a blessing. It is easier to clean an RV camper than a McMansion. My GUT strategies tell me to not wait for tornadoes to simplify my life but to choose simplicity at the outset. I spend my time thinking of ways to save time, money, and energy in the survive mode of my life. Efficiency is of vital importance.

The RV camper is easier to clean, but it still needs cleaning. You can't go smaller than that unless you like sleeping in a tent on the ground. That creates its own hardships. You can only reduce life so far but no farther.

I find that the biggest waste of energy in life is overthinking. People overthink because they want to avoid necessary work. The belief is that if thinking begets efficiency then you can think yourself out of work altogether. This is stupid. There comes a point where you have to stop thinking and start working.

For me, thinking is as exhausting as working. This is why I save the cerebral portions of my recovery program for the margins of my day and my week after completing chores and errands and doing physical exercise. These blog posts are brain busters which is why I save them for Sundays or rainy days stuck inside. I keep writing as a form of therapy for my damaged brain.

Knowing that work is inescapable, I am left with one question. Is this necessary? Do I need to do this? I ask myself this question because of the energy that it will cost me. When the gas tank is almost empty, you're not going to waste what is left on joyrides around town.

Ultimately, the GUT strategies and solutions are about eliminating overthinking and wasteful activities. When you do something, it has to count for something. Survival is success. I survive one day at a time. You can't get any simpler than that.