The Process Matters

Taking a trip for six months, you get in the rhythm of it. It feels like you can go on forever doing that. Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, and you know, they pay $80,000 and have Sherpas put the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.

YVON CHOUINARD

The process matters. That was the conclusion reached on a podcast with Yvon Chouinard. One of the podcasters brought up the infamous story of the way Tim Ferriss won a karate championship by doing a sumo move where he just pushed people out of the ring resulting in a victory by disqualification. Basically, Ferriss exploited a loophole to "win." It didn't matter that he skipped learning karate. He had found a hack to accomplish the goal. In today's world, the end justifies the means as people find every shortcut to get what they want. But we all know that people like Tim Ferriss and others like him are cheating themselves.

Now, I love a good tip or technique that makes life easier. Yvon Chouinard does, too, as he finds the simplest way to fly fish or make a good product. Is this the same as a Tim Ferriss hack? I don't think so. Much of the process involves discovering what works and doesn't work. Ferriss skips this process altogether.

This point has increased in importance as we now live in the age of AI where college students use ChatGPT to write their term papers, and Kim Kardcashian uses ChatGPT to cheat on the bar exam she failed. AI is the ultimate hack, and you can see how all of the fakers in government and corporate management are salivating at the prospects of the new technology. The guy with the fake degree from a diploma mill never has to worry about being caught and identified as a liar and a dumbass. People without intelligence or talent don't need to fret about how to write blog posts or make YouTube videos. AI will do it all for them.

I don't think the world wants this fake AI crap anymore than they wanted the lip syncing of Milli Vanilli. For some reason, human beings crave the authentically real and human thing. Music producer Rick Beato noticed this as people have come to reject the perfect music being produced today where every beat is on time and every note is in perfect pitch. The music sounds sterile. Wait until AI starts making movies and TV shows.

Elon Musk predicts that most human work today will end up as mere hobbies in the AI powered future. If you see what the light bulb did to candle making, you have to agree. Homemade candles are a hobby today that might get you a few bucks at the farmer's market. But are we prepared for AI created music, movies, TV shows, and art? Does the world really want that crap? So far, it doesn't.

What I know about AI is that it essentially plagiarizes human creativity. It doesn't create so much as remixes and mimics. I know that AI trains itself on my blog posts as I get all sorts of traffic from company websites. Apparently, they need my human generated content to steal. Even Milli Vanilli has actual humans singing on their records.

What I find is that the economy breaks in two parts where you have mass produced crap produced for the hoi polloi while you have a smaller part for people who want the real thing. For instance, you have McDonald's that makes burgers for the masses while you have the small mom and pop place that makes their burgers the old fashioned way. For some reason, McDonald's is unable to put mom and pop out of business.

I think there will always be a place for the authentically human thing where the process matters. I ask for only one important regulation. People need to be told that what they are consuming is either human or AI. The problem at the heart of AI is deception. I think people have a right to know if something is real or fake.

*******************

YVON CHOUINARD - The Perpetual Pursuit of Simplicity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNt8Kghp4zI

I Will Start the Anti-AI Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G4j6_OVxm0

Charlie's Blue Collar Decluttering Guide

The perfect is the enemy of the good. APHORISM
One day, you wake up and realize you have too much stuff. This realization comes when your treasures turn to trash, your assets become burdens, and your possessions possess you instead. Yet, you are unable to get rid of that stuff. The task is overwhelming. You don't know where to begin in tackling the problem. If you need the solution, here is my blue collar decluttering guide.
Decluttering is more about what is between your ears than what is in your home. It is psychology. Every item you own represents a decision you made in the past. Now, you regret those decisions. Those decisions were made one at a time. Decluttering demands that you rethink all of those decisions in a more compressed time frame. This is what makes the task more daunting. The way I have found to make the task less daunting is to use this homemade decision tree:

You can click on the image to make it larger. It is a stone simple system. I recommend printing it out or just writing it down on a piece of scrap paper to put on the front of the fridge. When the task feels overwhelming, go back to the system. I will explain it now.
IDENTITY
The cornerstone of this system is the identity component. This is where your problem lives. People acquire things based upon their needs and wants which are tied to their identities. For instance, an audiophile collects vinyl records because he is an audiophile. A mechanic collects tools because he is a mechanic. A reader collects books. You can see where this is going.
People accumulate possessions based upon their identities. Then, their identities change. This could be a job change or a change in marital status. It could be a change in hobbies and interests. When these changes happen, the needed things are no longer needed and become clutter. To complicate things, you may be in denial about the identity change. Or, you may not have given much thought to the matter.
Minimalism has become a popular thing because it provides a new identity for people. The problem is that minimalism is ridiculous. The way minimalism works is that it encourages people to erase their identities until a blank space is left. Minimalists reduce their possessions to the barest of essentials and make aesthetic decisions that tend towards the plain and the monochrome. It reminds me of the way Mao forced the Chinese to get the same haircut and wear the same coolie suit.
Minimalism is like a fad diet. It is effective in the short term but a failure in the long term. The reason minimalism fails is because people have identities beyond being a minimalist. At the most basic level, this identity would be that of a human being. You cease being a minimalist the moment you buy that second pair of shoes or that red polo shirt.
People need to be realistic about their identities. I don't see minimalists being adequately prepared for a hurricane or even having enough analog options to keep them entertained and informed through a power outage. The reality is that minimalists have outsourced their lives to the internet, the restaurant, the gym, and the local Starbucks. This is how they get by living in those empty apartments.
I can't pick your identity for you. Minimalists do this, but I am not going to do this. What I will tell you is that you need to think about who you are. You need to make those ultimate decisions about who you are and what you are about. You may be a wife, a mother, and a chef who likes to do triathlons. You may be a bachelor who works as a motorcycle mechanic and enjoys hard rock and roll music. Your possessions will be determined by your identity.
Clutter happens when you have an identity crisis. For instance, you bought a bunch of camping and outdoor equipment on the good intention of spending more time outside. Then, you discovered mosquitoes and bears and a preference for spending your leisure hours smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. The result is a bunch of unused gear collecting dust in your garage. Before you can rid yourself of that clutter, you have to ask yourself a question. Am I an outdoors person?
The worst identity you can have is the identity of a collector. If you collect things, stop reading this guide. It will not help you. The only difference between a collector and a clutterbug is the amount of insanity in their respective delusions. If you want to declutter, give up being a collector.
Another issue is the identity clash. This is where you assume two identities that are in conflict with each other. The most potent example I can give would be the father with the pornography collection going back to his high schools days. Get rid of that filth. For most people, identity clashes come when they have to grow up and be adults. When this happens, they get rid of their comic books, their Barbie dolls, their video games, and other childish things.
NEEDED OR NOT NEEDED
Once you know who you are and have your identity settled, the next part is fairly easy. You go through your things and ask yourself a question. Do I need this? Identity determines needs.
The minimalist is primarily motivated by the aesthetic. Everything is aimed to achieve a certain look of sparseness and simplicity. I am not a minimalist. I am a blue collar guy, and I aim for the utilitarian. I care less about how things look so much as how they function. This is why the things I own have a grittiness about them. I will use a cigar box to hold scrap paper or carry a camo backpack from Walmart. I try to have the fewest things possible, but I don't spend any time considering what they look like. The only difference between a minimalist and myself is that I wear a collared shirt from Goodwill instead of a $50 designer black T-shirt.
Another decluttering guru will advise you to only keep those things that "spark joy." That is so much crap. If I kept everything in my life that sparked joy, I wouldn't have room to move. I remove all of the feelings from the equation and ask myself the simple question. Do I need this?
If you need a thing, you keep it. If you don't need a thing, you get rid of it. That's it. This process can be hard at first, but it gets easier with practice. Your goal should be to ruthlessly eliminate all unnecessary things from your life.
The hard area would be the realm of sentimental items. I tell everyone to keep their baby pictures but not their baby diapers. People need memories, and I would never advise someone to throw away objects of memory. but those items can usually fit in a scrapbook, photo album, picture frame, or jewelry box. If the item is larger than those containers, you should get rid of it.
Another area would be supplies. It's OK to have five bottles of laundry detergent. It is OK to have 10 tubes of toothpaste. It is OK to have 20 sticks of deodorant. Minimalists don't keep supplies because this would not be minimalist. Smart people do keep supplies for future needs. This is just common sense.
The final area to deal with would be your libraries. This would be your collection of books, movies, albums, computer files, and other various forms of information. The computer age allows for digital storage which takes less space, but you end up with digital hoards. Regardless of the medium, you can follow the same rules for your information and entertainment. Do I need this? This can be determined by the better question. Am I ever going to read this again, watch this again, or listen to it again? If the answer is no, donate it or dispose of it.
CONTAINERS
Once you have determined that a thing is needed, you need to park it in a container. This could be a closet, a shoe box, a toolbox, a backpack, or whatever. My practice is to toss things in their containers without thinking about them. My wife refers to this practice as my kindergarten strategy where I put my toys back in the toy box. I probably learned this in kindergarten. The result is that I have a drawer full of black socks that I don't bother matching or putting together.
People who are more obsessive-compulsive might spend time organizing the items in their containers. I am not inclined in this way. I will go through a container and eliminate unneeded things, but I am not going to alphabetize the books on my shelves. People who work in specialized environments like libraries, warehouses, hardware stores, and offices need this extra attention to details. This is because they have more stuff to deal with than I do. When you have fewer things, you need less organization.
DONATE OR DISPOSE
Once you have determined that a thing is not needed, you need to decide to donate it or throw it in the dumpster. Some people might elect to try and sell the items at a garage sale or on fleaBay. There's nothing wrong with this strategy, but there are items that may take a very long time to sell. At some point, you are better off giving it to Goodwill and getting a tax write off.
You should donate items that might be needed or desired by other people. Items that are broken or worn out do not qualify. You may or may not be lending support to someone else's clutter problem. But that isn't your problem. I shop at thrift stores, and I wouldn't buy those items if I didn't need them.
Disposing of items is fairly simple. You don't need them, and they are not fit to donate. Toss it out. Old magazines, newspapers, tattered books, and worn out clothing and shoes should all get tossed. Some people can't seem to part with their trash, and we know these people as hoarders. Don't be a hoarder. Your trash is not treasure.
DAILY DECLUTTER
A practice that I do is a daily declutter where I pick one item per day to remove from my space. If you're beginning with decluttering, this is easy. But it becomes harder as you remove more and more stuff from your life. I am at the point where it is excruciating now because I only have things that I need. This only means that this method works. When I can't find anything to declutter, I punt and try again the next day.
I think the daily declutter is a vital practice for maintaining a simple life. It is one thing to do a one time declutter. It is another thing to maintain or increase what you have achieved. The daily declutter will do this for you.
RECLUTTERING
Recluttering is what happens when you go to Goodwill with a donation only to return with new things you found. This is like going to Burger King after working out at the gym. But you are always going to be buying things going forward because you will always need things. The problem is when you buy things you don't need. This is recluttering.
Beyond toiletries and supplies, I always hesitate before making a purchase. If the purchase is large, I will hesitate even longer. Many times, I will talk myself out of the purchase because I don't need it, or it will not fit my needs. In the last decade, I can only recall one purchase that I made that I regretted. It ended up as a donation to Goodwill.
OTHER PEOPLE'S CLUTTER
Once you have decluttered, you may find yourself dealing with other people's clutter. This may be the belongings of a deceased relative or loved one or the belongings of your spouse and family. This can cause a great deal of friction for people. This is especially true if one of those people is a hoarder.
I don't have a solution for this problem that involves changing the other person. I respect another person's autonomy. By the same token, I insist that they respect my autonomy. Many people transgress this autonomy when they insist on buying you things you don't want or need, or they choose to dump their stuff on you. The easiest way to deal with this pushiness is to thank the person for their thoughtless gift, and then declutter the stuff out of your life.
The burden of unwanted gifts comes from some attachment to the person that we transfer to the things they give us. If I throw away the thing, I have thrown away the person. I don't fall in this trap. Once it is mine, I can do with what I like which is usually taking it to Goodwill or the dumpster. It would be nice if people would not waste their money or my time on this crap.
When you live a simple life, hoarders and clutterbugs feel compelled to change this by buying you things or giving you things you don't want or need. Because they mistakenly believe happiness comes from the accumulation of material things, they think they will make you happy by giving you material things to accumulate. It is highly annoying, but you can't fix stupid. Just be diplomatic, write a thank you note, and get rid of that crap.
Don't ever worry that the person will come over and notice that their "gift" is missing. I find most clutterbugs buy and spend so much that they have amnesia about these things. This is why hoarders will have two or three of the same item still in their packaging. They forget they bought it.
This brings us to the uncomfortable issue of living with a clutterbug. This relationship is not going to work anymore than living with a drug addict, a violent person, or a thief. We can debate how much is enough, but there is no debate about living with a hoarder. That is not going to work. Clutterbugs and hoarders have mental problems, and you need to look into getting that person to change or look into getting that person out of your life. This may sound harsh until you meet the poor family members trying to keep their sanity living with hoarders and clutterbugs.
PERFECTIONISM
The greatest obstacle in decluttering is perfectionism. Minimalists are perfectionists. Their favorite hobby is posting pictures of their pristine living spaces on Instagram. Then, when they are done with this, they put all their clutter back where they had it. They're not fooling me.
There is no state known as "decluttered." Decluttering is a process not a destination. Once you have this process mindset, things will go easier for you. Decluttering is just another regular task like showering, brushing your teeth, housecleaning, answering emails, and other repetitive things. This is why I recommend a daily declutter as a habit. That habit works. In a single year, you will have decluttered 365 items. That's a lot of stuff.
Conclusion
This is all I have to say about decluttering. I keep it simple with that algorithm and the daily declutter habit. If you follow this stone simple plan, you will inevitably have less clutter in your life. It works for me. It will work for you. And you didn't have to pay for this advice. I'm trying to help people. All those other experts are trying to make money.

Developing An Offline Existence

While dumbphones help, they are tools at the end of the day. I love my dumbphone, but I know that adopting offline makes a larger difference than switching to a basic device.

JOSE BRIONES

Jose Briones is the dumbphone guru advocating for simpler devices and trying to get offline more. He makes a good point. It is not enough to remove smartphones and social media from your life. You need to replace them with offline options. Without these offline options, you will find a hole that online will inevitably fill again. Here are my personal options for developing an offline existence.

1. Terrestrial radio

I usually go online in the evening when I can fry my damaged brain and pass out from the exhaustion. I am going to bed anyway, so this schedule allows the least amount of disruption to my day. My online time goes from my email to Google News to my Inoreader account. I have given up doom scrolling YouTube videos as the scrolling causes me nausea.

The internet took the place of the newspaper and magazines in my life. I don't do social media, so I don't experience the addiction anymore. For me, the internet is like thumbing through a magazine at the doctor's office. I can take it or leave it.

I have found that my top source for news is listening to the radio. I try and catch The Fox News brief at the top of the hour. Our local stations in town carry it. The rest of the time I listen to talk radio before listening to music. We have a radio in the kitchen, and I have an old Sony Walkman I listen to in the bedroom while I am lying down. I love radio.

Smartphones have the capability of receiving FM radio broadcasts but virtually none have a tuner built in. They will put a camera and a GPS in the thing but not a terrestrial radio. They have apps for that, but that just runs up the bill for the data. I think this is done on purpose.

I used to listen to podcasts, but I find that there are too many podcasts for the hours you have in a day. I will do a single serving of a podcast if the topic or guest is compelling. This is a rare thing. I am grateful for the Joe Rogan clips on YouTube. It saves me from listening to the whole thing which is mostly garbage.

2. Slow reading

I read books made from dead trees. I have an ancient Kindle, but I prefer a real book to an e-book. I read a chapter each night and can easily cover a book each month. I don't do binge reading. This is the number one habit for having an offline existence. Books will change your life.

3. Pencil and paper

My flip phone has a note taking tool, and I started using it when I didn't have a pencil handy. It takes longer to use that digital tool than having a notebook. When ideas hit me, I try to record them as quickly as I can before I forget them. This blog post began as one of those notes. I strongly believe in pencil and paper for the creative person. After that, the computer is just a typewriter with a screen. The real genius happens offline in my head.

Mr. Peasant On His Homemade Pocket Notebooks

https://noblepeasants.blogspot.com/2025/03/mr-peasant-on-his-homemade-pocket.html

4. Going outside

I strongly believe in going outside each day even if it is just for ten minutes sitting on your back step. This would be going outside without the smartphone or earbuds or air pods. Those things ruin the experience. You want to be still and quiet for a bit. People have lost the ability to be bored because of their constant distractions. This is unfortunate because boredom is when the magic begins. I find being outside to be rejuvenating and invigorating.

Conclusion

I am not big on advocating sports and hobbies because I find people today just turn that into fodder for social media and YouTube. Plus, hobbies cost money. I listened to a podcast recently with Yvon Chouinard who said he reads three newspapers each day and listens to NPR. As far as I know, he doesn't use a smartphone or go online. The man is a billionaire and spends his days fly fishing. Without a doubt, the man has an offline existence, but he remains informed. I think his example should inspire the rest of us to develop a similar offline existence.

Charlie's Favorite Saints

If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-3 DOUAY-RHEIMS

There are many saints in the Church that inspire us to greater holiness and devotion. The problem for me is that many of them are unrelatable to a nobody like myself. I admire Saint Paul's letters and the spiritual genius of Thomas Aquinas. I am amazed at stigmatists like Saint Francis of Assisi and Padre Pio. I am impressed by the charity of Mother Teresa and the holy ambition of Mother Angelica. These were gifted saints that God used to build up His church. I am not one of those gifted saints. That doesn't mean that a nobody can't become a saint.

I tend to divide the saints into "super saints" and "ordinary saints." The only real difference were the gifts God gave them. A great example would be comparing Batman and Superman. Superman is a god among mortals while Batman is a mere mortal. For some reason, we find Batman more appealing than Superman because we can relate to him. The same is true of ordinary saints and super saints.

My favorite saints are ordinary saints. They are relatable to me. I can find in them models for how I should live and pursue holiness.

1. Our Lady, Queen of Saints

The Virgin Mary exhibited no miraculous gifts during Her earthly life. Yet, she is the highest of all God's creatures. She was humble and simple. That humility infuriated Satan who believed Her honor belonged to him. But God humbles the proud and exalts the humble. Mary reminds me of the power of humility. Her most famous dictum was, "Do whatever He tells you." You can't go wrong with that.

2. Saint Joseph

There are no recorded words of Saint Joseph, yet I find him the most relatable of saints. Joseph provides for us a model of how a husband and father should live dedicated to providing for his family and protecting them. Joseph was a layperson. He held no great position despite being the heir to David's crown. He was a humble carpenter. Some would say he was a nobody. Yet, his strong and silent witness shows us the way. I know many men who live just like Saint Joseph. They love the Lord, and they love their families. They toil happily and ask for nothing special in return. I think every layman should emulate Saint Joseph.

3. Saint Joan of Arc

When it came time to pick a confirmation saint, I picked Saint Joan of Arc. I asked the priest if it was OK to choose a woman saint as a confirmation saint, and he said I could. Everyone thought the choice was "punk rock," but that was not my intention with the choice. I was just impressed by Joan being an uneducated peasant girl who put herself completely in God's hands. Her story is truly amazing.

I probably could have picked some other saint, but Saint Joan had the qualities I wanted to emulate. She was humble, simple, courageous, and died in a similar way to our Lord. Everything she did came from simple love for our Lord. God did everything else.

4. Saint James

When I was a Protestant, I was a huge fan of the epistles of Saint Paul. Protestants love Paul because there is enough ambiguity in his writings to allow them to push their heresies. I remember the Book of Romans being my number one proof text for my Calvinism. The problem is that Saint Paul was thoroughly Catholic. The Protestant smokescreen worked for a time, but I can't read Paul now without knowing the actual meaning of what he wrote. It would be nice if there was an epistle in the New Testament that was more explicitly Catholic and written in plain language. That epistle exists and comes from Saint James.

Martin Luther hated the Book of James and referred to it as an "epistle of straw." Luther wanted to cut it out of the Bible, but his followers resisted this. James refutes the Lutheran doctrine of faith alone. It is actually faith plus works. But I digress. . .

Saint James is the Ernest Hemingway of New Testament writers. He just cuts through the confusion and tells you how to live practically as a Catholic. I won't get into the identity of Saint James though it is widely believed that James was a cousin of Jesus and the Bishop of Jerusalem. This close relationship with our Lord would explain the simplicity and clear teaching of the epistle. I love clarity and simplicity. It is hard to understand Saint Paul and Aquinas. You won't have this problem with Saint James.

5. Saint Francis de Sales

Saint Francis de Sales is the saint of the universal call to holiness. He famously wrote, "It has happened that many have lost perfection in the desert who had preserved it in the world." The gist of that line is that you don't have to become a monk or a nun to attain holiness. Holiness is for everyone regardless of your state in life.

When I came to the conclusion that Opus Dei was a cult and its founder was a grifting con artist, Saint Francis de Sales became my new inspiration and reliable guide on the universal call to holiness. Introduction to the Devout Life is superior to anything Josemaria Escriva ever wrote and comes from a man of deep humility who practiced what he preached. Francis's teachings are stone simple yet profound. Just Google quotations from the man and prepare to be amazed.

6. St. Therese of Lisieux

When Saint Therese looked at the super saints, it filled her with despair because she knew she was not one of them. That despair was the beginning of what we know now as the "Little Way." This obscure and unknown Carmelite nun penned a classic of ordinary holiness teaching that small acts done with great love are what truly matter. Saint Paul said as much in the opening quotation of this blog post. It is the widow's mite. It is the fictional but wonderful story of the little drummer boy at Christmas. Put love into your small acts, and they become great acts because God looks at the heart.

Ultimately, saints love God. Love is the measure not great acts of charitable service or sacrifice. We can't all be a Saint Teresa of Avila but anyone can be a Saint Therese of Lisieux. You just need that love.

Conclusion

I love these saints because they speak to me as a layperson and a nobody. I wasted a lot of my life wanting to be a somebody, but I am content now to be a nobody. It is unfortunate that there are those in the Church who twist the desire for holiness as a way to get money and servitude out of people who don't know any better. I also suspect that many who pursue vocations as permanent deacons, third order Carmelites and Franciscans, and Benedictine oblates do so out of a desire for greatness instead of holiness. I confess this was my motivation in exploring Opus Dei. I wanted to be more than what God had actually called me to be. I would counsel people to be very discerning on such things. Do you wish to be holy or to be great?

I love the Lord. I am a nobody. I am not an egalitarian. God does not dispense His gifts equally to all, and it behooves us to know our place and accept it with humility. I accept my place. Though God does not dispense His gifts equally, He gives all of us exactly what we need. As I told the lady who encountered one of the Catholic cults, everything you need is here in this church as I pointed to the door of her parish. You don't need something "extra." Catholics need to remember that it was Satan and Judas Iscariot who wanted more than what they were actually given.

I appreciate the super saints. They are awesome. I praise God for them. What made them holy was the same thing that will make you holy. This is love and humility. In that regard, we are all equal, Without love and humility, you are nothing.

Living In Survive Mode

For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands.

THOMAS A KEMPIS, The Imitation of Christ

I have written a few times about thrive and survive mode. My plans for thrive mode were my proposal. The accident that damaged my brain was God's disposal. The lesson I learned in all of that is that your life is entirely in God's hands. This should be good news to everyone except those busy making other plans. I confess to being one of those people making other plans.

Thrive mode is the vanity of living large and fast in the here and now. I have scanned my memory banks to try and recall someone who actually lived in thrive mode, and I could think of no one. What I could think of were many people with hefty debts. And that, Gentle Reader, is the dirty secret of thrive mode. It is a fiction built on borrowed money.

When you decide to live debt free, you enter into permanent survive mode. I have always lived in survive mode, but I planned to live in thrive mode one day without recourse to loans and credit. That was utter folly. I am not saying that it can't be done, but it is so hard to accomplish that it forces you into a state of humility and rethinking things in more practical terms. You find you don't need that three story McMansion. You don't need that gas guzzling 4WD redneck limousine. Earned money sobers the mind while easy credit intoxicates the brain.

I believe God provides for your needs but not your greed. God has always provided for my needs as I am still alive as I write this. He has never allowed me to win the jackpot in the lottery. That is for the good because winning the lottery would be a disaster for me in terms of my lifestyle. I like living in survive mode, and I don't want that to change.

The Boomers were the generation that lived in thrive mode. I know one Boomer who took on a 30 year mortgage in his 80s. That is optimism for you. Ultimately, that entire generation borrowed their way into a state of permanent debt. Trump proposes the 50 year mortgage. Only Boomers would think that was a good idea.

It is no surprise that the Boomers are mostly a godless generation. That is how thrive mode warps the mind. It makes God needless to your life. But we know better.

My life is in God's hands. It is the same for you, Gentle Reader. Survive mode forces us to acknowledge and accept that reality and depend on God's mercy and providence. Our clever schemes are not the secret. As someone who loves strategies for living, I have to admit that they are nothing without God. I can claim credit for no victories in my life. The glory belongs to God.

I believe in the cooperative model as expounded by St. Augustine. You should pray as if everything depends on God. You should work as if everything depends on you. The evangelical Protestant loves the idea of letting God do all the work, but this is presumption. God expects us to put effort into things. Likewise, the atheist believes in total self-reliance and being the "captain of his soul." This is arrogance. God will show the bankruptcy of that in His time.

Survive mode comes down to praying and working according to the Rule of St. Benedict. You do both. You plant your seeds and pray for rain. Farmers and gardeners know the cooperative model well.

As a former atheist, I tend towards self-reliance. God has ended that for me with allowing me to be a TBI survivor. I am at God's mercy. God is still there. I am surviving by His grace. I believe in God reliance now. My wife and I have seen God do what we could never do, and we are grateful.

You should start each day with prayer and asking for God's help. Then, you need to forget that prayer and get to work on whatever you can do. If you pray and don't work, God will not bless that. If you work and don't pray, God will not bless that either. You pray and work. Do both. Faith without works is dead.

This whole ordeal with TBI has been very humbling for me, but I am grateful for that. It came at a time when I was going to take steps towards getting to thrive mode. I was such a fool then. I pray that I never become that foolish again.

The bottom line is that survive mode is the cooperative model of Saint Augustine. You should be wise and work but also be humble acknowledging that it all comes from God. I think of David slaying Goliath with that sling. Was it a miracle of God? Or, was it David's skills with the sling? The answer is both. God used a simple shepherd to bring down a proud and arrogant warrior. Humility is a gift from God, and it is humility that wins the battle.

The Push

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FROM MY BANK

2012 was a crossroads year for me. My old flip phone was cracking at the hinge, and I needed to replace it before a total break happened. So, I went to my Verizon dealer, and I had to make a choice between another flip phone or to go with the herd and buy a smartphone. I had already had a negative experience with an iPod touch, so I decided that I needed another flip phone. The one I picked was an expensive but robust and durable model from Casio. I reasoned that it would probably be the last flip phone that I would ever be able to buy, so I may as well invest in one that would last at least a decade. That phone turned out to be the best phone I have ever owned. You can see it in the pictures below.

This phone was more than a tool. It was a friend. It saved a coworker's job when I used the camera to catch a guy in a lie. This phone was called a "super phone" by a coworker who thought my text messages were better than anything sent from a smartphone. My secret was that I used my brain and creativity instead of emojis and apps. The ultimate test came in 2018 when this phone survived the accident that damaged my brain and body. I was able to call my boss and my wife to tell them what happened. My partner's smartphone was all busted up, and he had to use my phone to call his wife. This phone ended service in 2019 when I had to move from 3G to 4G. I upgraded to another robust flip phone made by Kyocera which I use to the present day. I am happy to say that I think flip phones are not going away.

When I bought the original Casio flip phone, I showed it off to people at work because I was impressed with its ruggedness. They looked at me like I was a fool. I remember using the phone and someone asked me if it was my work phone. I told him it was my personal phone, and he couldn't believe it. Why would anyone buy a flip phone in the smartphone era? That was my first encounter with what I now refer to as the Push.

The Push is that unseen force that exerts itself in an effort to make you conform to the herd. I have taken a lot of ribbing and flak over the years for the flip phone, and I have resisted all of it. Unfortunately, the Push exists in other areas. For instance, my bank and my internet provider demand that I now pay $5 extra per month for paper statements and bills delivered by snail mail. I don't want this. I am not alone on this.

When did companies decide to get in on the Push? When did passive-aggressiveness become a business strategy? The answer to that one goes back to Steve Jobs and Apple. Apple became famous for deleting features from their products. You want a disk drive for your box? Go buy a Dell. You want a plug for your wired earbuds? Go buy an Android or a dongle. Other manufacturers believed in backwards compatibility. Apple knew they could save money and increase their margins by giving their customers less. The chutzpah was amazing, but Apple knows their customers are devoted idiots who would buy manure as long as there was an Apple logo on the box.

This arrogance became the Push as other companies followed suit in forcing their customers to eat it. This is how you get the self-checkout at Walmart. This is how you get TV broadcasters forcing the conversion to ATSC 3.0 and DRM encryption. And this will continue until we have central bank digital currencies and the Mark of the Beast. Freedom will give way to COMPLIANCE.

I am not into compliance. I am into the opposite of the Push which I call the Resistance. I push back. I kneel to receive communion on the tongue. I refuse to buy an electric vehicle. I do not use social media. I still use snail mail for cards and letters. This isn't Luddism. This is my daily choice to go with what Catherine Austin Fitts calls a "human future."

Can the Resistance win? It is already winning on the electric vehicle thing as consumers stick with internal combustion and EV makers go bankrupt. It is winning against energy hogging AI data centers as the locals protest their arrival. There is a thriving dumbphone/digital minimalist movement that represents a stubborn minority. You can still watch a movie in a theater. You can still buy vinyl records, cassette tapes, and manual typewriters.

In the past, people adopted tech because it was an improvement to their lives. There was no compulsion involved. People wanted these things. I wanted a cellphone. I wanted the internet. Hell, I wanted Facebook until I learned better. No one had a gun to my head. Today, I want a paper menu instead of a QR code. I want to pay with a check or cash instead of putting my financial information at risk. I want music performed by real people not AI. I want my AM radio. The thing I have learned is that the Resistance wins when it doesn't comply. You just have to stick to your guns.

UPDATE: We had a good time laughing at this article over at Breitbart:

Researchers: Americans Holding on to Old Tech Devices Is Hurting the Economy

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2025/11/27/researchers-americans-holding-on-to-old-tech-devices-is-hurting-the-economy/

The reality is that Americans holding on to old tech devices hurts the profits of Big Tech especially Apple. They can't come out and just say this, so those profits magically become the "economy" which is to right wingers what the "environment" is to left wingers. To hell with the economy. What about my personal economy? As usual, the combox comments on this one are glorious:

If the economy is dependent on conspicuous consumption and planned obsolescence then maybe 'the economy' is sick.

***

Most REAL people can't afford to throw away more than a thousand dollars every year to buy a new phone when the old one still works just fine.

The people putting out this kind of trash live in an artificial world that has little or nothing to do with the REAL world the rest of us inhabit.

***

Consider me on of those Americans holding on to "old tech devices," but in this case it's my 2015 Ford F-150 which has 186,000 miles on it. This vehicle cost around $52K when I purchased it new. In order to replace it with a 2025 or 2026 model with similar options, I would be looking at a sticker price in the 90K range.

Not gonna happen. I'm much more interested in "my" economy, then "the" economy.

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I get emails, texts, shop, pay bills, look up that actor in the movie who's name I can't remember and do everything else that I need on my 5 year-old, $175 Android just as well as a $1200 iPhone. I don't understand why people "need" them so badly?

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So in escense what this article is saying is that we need to spend our money as fast ss we make it so that investors will be happy. Kind of like the old credit score, if you arent already in debt you cant borrow money. People need to wake up, its all propaganda designed to suck us dry while the elite get richer

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Right.......we're the problem, because we're not buying enough of their crap at over $1000 every year they issue some b.s. upgrade. The arrogance.

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IPhones are over 1k. New tech isn't my priority, bills are.

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The "experts" are concerned now?! Wait till about 50 million of us shltcan the cursed things and go back to the good old days.

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Our society has become insecure smart phone social media zombies.

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What if I don't own a Smartphone at all? Is that a capital offense? I'm quite pleased to be supporting "the economy" as little as humanly possible.

***

It's been a while since I went to Blockbuster.

I still have a lot movies on VHS I need to rewind.

Are you saying I should upgrade?

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Researchers out to cash in on AI , nothing is wrong with old devices, old devices work perfectly well. No need to throw away and replace older technology . I wonder how much money that researcher is getting paid to push people into buying something that they do not need . No Thanks!!!!!!!

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Excuse me? There is no way to scold people for holding on to working equipment, instead of wasting money to buy the latest and greatest. This is really STUPID financial advice.

Use it up,

Wear it out,

Make it do,

Or do without!

DEBT IS SLAVERY.

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"Researchers" must own stock in high tech.

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My $9 a month tracfone and $300 laptop serves me just fine. Will keep them for as long as possible.

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Last year I was having problems with my phone so I went to the provider. The first thing the sales person said to me was Why are you still using that dinosaur? I don't think we even support that one anymore.

I had to get a new phone.

***

IPhones are usually around 2 years behind Android in terms of being up to date with the latest tech - they know people who know almost nothing about real value or tech buy their stuff like sheep so - they don't need to worry.

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Oh, I am crying for the tech billionaires. The real estate billionaires are saying we are hurting the economy by holding onto our houses and not selling them or buying higher-priced ones. How did we ever live before these greedy moguls?

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It would be interesting to know what manufacturer of what products funded this 'research' ???

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Try prying that flip phone from my cold, dead fingers lol! We could care less about your need for speed! When you can convince me that driving across town takes less time to drop off a bill than online banking where you can’t communicate with a real human if a problem, hacking issues( no bragging of your high tech wonders!)and when you call go through 5 to 8 prompts, 2 to 4 different departments to hear a barely English foreign worker who could care less about your 90 year old mom and her bill, maybe we the people may reconsider!

***

LMAO! How about trying to make an affordable product rather than up charging each year for slave labor in China to boost profits? Every other year at the least there should be a discount, or offer phones with more basic options, then sales will increase. I am sure the CEO's will cry that their 38 million dollar salary went down .0025%, but that is what truly hurts the economy.

***

Make new ones cheaper and maybe I would upgrade. That said, not much difference between a 2020 phone and a 2025 phone.

***

What a load of crap. Most work computers are plenty fast enough for the people who use them. And productivity for personal phones? Don't make me laugh. Most people don't even think of their phones as productivity devices. This is just research by device makers who want to increase sales. They should try lowering their prices, and more people will buy new ones.

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Why should we spend money we don't have on devices we don't need?

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They must own stock in apple. Good stuff, wouldn't own anything produced by them though.

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I guess I should buy a new house and car since I paid those off and stay in perpetual debt instead of enjoying my disposal income the way I want.

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Our son is getting a new VHS player for us for Christmas. I'm not paying for streaming. DVDs are the final technology entertainment for me.

We had a CED collection (similar to laser disc), some beta, a ton of VHS and finally DVD. Same with music. We started with a vinyl collection, then cassettes, and CDs . There's a limit to how many times I'm going to purchase the same music or movies.

It's a racket. I stopped caring a long time ago whether I had the latest thing. Correction. I never cared.

***

I want a phone that is just a phone. Caller ID, a contacts list and I will accept texting. Yes I admit I am a tech Neanderthal. I have a GPS in my vehicle. I have email on my computer. I have a Kindle. I don't need or want anything else.

***

They can`t make anything simple anymore. Too many bells and whistles. Like new cars with computer screens,... Worse than cellphones for distracting drivers.

***

My last laptop an Acer Aspire held the ghost for 6 yrs. My Galaxy s22 Ultra is going on 4 yrs. My buddy who is YoubreakiFix store manager has a Galaxy s9 going 7 yrs. What do they all have in common? What was pretty expensive when new, but well made. They are going to stay in our hands until they die. F these tech companies who want us to dig deep into our pockets every yr or two to line theirs. F THEM.

***

I drive older vehicles to escape driving a computer on wheels.

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I still use an ancient "flip phone" cause it has buttons instead of a touch screen! I do not the have touch sensitivity required!

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"Experts claim"; Stopped reading at that point.

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Society was better off in the flip phone era.

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How about an article on why Americans can't afford new tech...

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Bad....Bad, Americans! You're the cause of the tech manufacturers' pain and poverty this Christmas season! Your frugality will be punished!

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My dad retired at 65 and went right back to a flip phone. It does everything he needs and he was so happy to get rid of his smart phone.

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Do you understand now? They see you as cattle and you're only purpose is to serve the economy.

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Actually the problem is most people are so broke ass they are lucky to keep their lights on

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Benjamin Franklin said, "In all things, be frugal". Keep your phone, your laptop.

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Not only that, I hold onto my vehicles. My truck is 19 years old. My car is 20. And I own a 1960 , a 1968, a 1974, and a 1975 motorcycles. I have lived in my fully paid off house for 43 years.

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My 28 year old son just downgraded to a flip phone. Tired of doomscrolling and being a victim of algorithms. I salute his discipline.

The Sad And Inevitable Decline Of The Knights Of Columbus

My boyfriend wanted to join the Knights. He attended some meetings where they were also trying to recruit younger men and said that all they did after that was hound him to sign up for their life insurance. There was no talk of participation, initiation, or anything of the sort. Might have just been a bad council but he felt like he had encountered the church equivalent of a time share.

A COMMENT ON REDDIT

When I converted to Catholicism, the very next step I made as a new Catholic was to become a Knight of Columbus. No one had to twist my arm because I wanted to be a Knight from the start. I was totally into all of it--the pancake breakfasts, the fish fries, the barbecues, the Tootsie Roll drives, the rummage sales, and the tuxedos and ostrich plumed chapeaus. I had no problem with the secret rituals or the stiff meetings following Robert's Rules of Order. All of the things that supposedly drive away young men was totally fine with me. Of course, I was past age 40 when I converted, so I was already a middle aged boring guy. I liked the Knights just as they were. I was pleased to serve.

I never bought any of the Knights of Columbus insurance or other financial products. I was already covered by a generous life insurance policy through my employer that cost me nothing, but I let the Knights try to sell me on a term plan and choked at the premiums I would have to pay. I would find out later that I was not the only one. But I didn't become a Knight for the insurance. I became a Knight out of a desire to serve and help atone for my wicked years as a virulent atheist. On that score, the Knights delivered.

I was too busy working to pay much attention to what was going on with the Knights on a national level or with my local council. I would show up to meetings to sign up for some new duty. I knew to never try to initiate some project because such things lead to wrangling and byzantine rules and such. I was just a worker bee and remained that way. When you shut up and work, you become popular and liked by the old guys. The reality is that I just didn't have the time to do much else.

My local council was imploding. When I did make it to a meeting, our once thriving council lacked enough men to fulfill the quorum requirements. I remember when those meetings used to be standing room only. The thing literally died before my eyes. To this day, I don't know the full story of our council's collapse. I thought it was something internal to our piece of the Knights of Columbus. Then, I had the accident that put me in the hospital with a traumatic brain injury and out of a job. My own world was too destroyed to pay attention to what was going on with the Knights. I still deal with those personal problems today.

When our council folded, I remember that the insurance agent said we could remain going so long as we had at least one Knight on the insurance. I thought that was an odd thing to say, and it took me some years in my brain damaged state to figure it out. Even as the council was going up in flames, that guy was trying to make a sale. Needless to say, the council vanished which tells me that he never made that sale. From what I can tell, there was not a single Knight in our council who bought the insurance. Otherwise, our council would still exist. This is speculation on my part.

On the national level, the Knights of Columbus decided to get rid of the annual dues, the secret initiation rituals, and the traditional attire of the Fourth Degree in favor of what many deride as the "Girl Scout uniform" with the beret. This was all a lame attempt to attract a younger generation of Knights which mostly alienated the older Knights. I didn't like any of it. I also don't think any of that was what made younger men not want to become Knights.

While all of this was happening both locally and nationally, a men's club sprang up at our parish that did most of the same things that the Knights did. In fact, this club was comprised of many former Knights. These are the same guys who couldn't make the council meetings, but they could attend the activities of this new club. I didn't understand it.

I have not attended anything with this new men's club because I have decided that I am not a joiner anymore. After my brief involvement with the Opus Dei cult and the disaster with the Knights, I decided that I was just going to be a "free agent" and do what I could on an individual level. It also hurts that I refrain from driving unless it is an emergency because I worry that my cognitive issues may put me in a crash. My wife has enough on her plate without having to ferry me to men's club meetings.

Recently, it has become clear to me what happened with the Knights of Columbus. I discovered that a fellow Knight had passed away and belonged to a similar men's club at his new parish in Illinois. I started googling to discover that this was true in many other parishes. They all once had thriving councils of the Knights of Columbus that had either folded or were stumbling towards self-destruction. How did things come to this?

You will find all sorts of postmortems and analysis about the situation on various Catholic forums, but they all get it wrong. The Knights of Columbus are victims of seppuku or the ritual suicide of the samurai in ancient Japan. They are disemboweling themselves in a way that cannot be stopped or survived. The cause of this destruction is plain to see. The fault lies with the insurance company.

Frank Walker at Canon 212 always refers to them derisively as the "Insurance Knights of Columbus." This is because this is what they are. The Knights of Columbus are essentially an insurance company masquerading as a Catholic fraternal order. Enough Knights got fed up with the fiction and decided to do away with it. Now, they have this ad hoc fraternal order of men's clubs to counteract the moribund Insurance Knights of Columbus. Changing from an ostrich hat to a Special Forces beret is not going to change this. And the Knights can't cease being an insurance company until it goes bankrupt. Before that happens, they will inevitably take any customer they can get including women, Protestants, or whatever. The company comes before all else.

I don't think this is what Blessed Father Michael McGivney wanted when he got this thing going. The Knights were intended to counteract the influence of the Freemasons who knew taking care of widows and orphans of their deceased members was good practice that would grow their numbers. Today, I can confidently say that the Knights of Columbus do nothing for their members or their families except try to sign them up for a policy.

Officially, I still remain a Knight. In reality, I get the magazine in the mail and emails from the insurance agent trying to sell me what I will never buy. That's all the Knights are to me now. They are junk mail and spam. I had a good run with them, but that run is over.

The Knights of Columbus are Dying, and THIS is the Problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9glDcsaZDw