I haven't made any definite plans, New Year's Resolutions, or the like, but 2024 looks like a year where I may be making some major changes. Winter cold is harder to handle every year thanks to some old back injuries. While I like the core aspects of my job as a librarian, the political and bureaucratic atmosphere has become almost intolerable, and the stress it adds to my daily life is a burden. Living in the Inland Northwest is unaffordable for many of us who grew up here, and pay is not keeping pace with expenses. Unfortunately, I don't have a way out planned. Saving money is a challenge when expenses loom.
I need a reliable vehicle, but even used car prices are still absurdly high due to myriad factors ranging from the Obama-era "Cash for Clunkers" wave of destruction to COVID supply chain disruption of microchips and other electronics used to build new cars. I'm not even sure what I want. An older sedan would offer decent fuel efficiency with enough towing capacity for a teardrop trailer or tent trailer, allowing me to travel without much lodging expense. A minivan might be viable as a conversion project without the premium cost the Van Life craze put on bigger vehicles, and with better fuel economy. A pickup with a camper in the bed is old-school but by no means out of the question.
Going on the road means I will still need a way to pay for gas and food. I'll need to start looking for remote work opportunities, and hope HIVE moons in the mean time. At least I know how to cook from scratch, and I have camp cookware aplenty now, so rice and beans and vegetables could work. I'd love the opportunity to visit family in the midwest, explore Appalachia, tour the gulf coast, and maybe meander through the southwest, but gas isn't cheap. Maybe just taking some time off to go camping in the woods and escape the constant barrage of societal noise will be enough.
This may all come to naught. Who knows? I still strongly suspect 2023 or 2024 will be the start of the next Great Recession once the court historians can look back with hard data showing how bad the current bubble economy really is, and how severe stagflation is likely to become. Whether I stay or go, I'm quite cynical about these broad trends and their likely effects on whatever I choose.
It's not all bad news, though. It seems like one of my old injuries may be on the mend at last. I am making a deliberate effort to be a more conscious consumer and choose quality in replacing anything that wears out, whether tools or clothing or technology. Little that is worth having is likely to get cheaper in the future. I still think crypto is our future, and independent decentralized monetary systems are one of the best tools we have to escape the debt-based government legal tender fiat. HIVE, BitCoin, Monero, and other projects allow us to decouple ourselves from the leviathan state. There are no guarantees, and the surveillance system keeps prying into our efforts, but that's no reason to give up.
If I go offline for longer periods than usual this year, it probably means I'm too busy with offline projects. Maybe I'll write about them, maybe not. If I can anticipate a hiatus, I'll try to expand my Hive Power delegations to various curation projects so it isn't just stagnant in my wallet. Again, nothing is set in stone, and none of it may come to pass, but change won't happen on its own. I need to start finding ways to change course one way or another instead of just going with the flow, because it's starting to smell a bit too much like sewage if you catch my drift.
