The Good Reset

This is loosely related to the idea that in the world filled with blind people, the one-eyed man is King. I have two eyes, but admittedly they are a little myopic, but I can still see.

What I see are foolish fixes for things that were perfectly fine.

Here is today’s list of the very obvious.

The Web And the Spider

Like a proper web, the internet is also the home of the spider. The spider is my clever metaphor for time wasting, doom scrolling and probably the source of the so-called ADHD in kids.

There’s a real world out there. But it’s so far removed from where most people exist, that they even came up with the term IRL. In Real Life.

What to do: In my humble opinion, get off the thing. Lock the phone up when you get home. Put on some music, pour a glass of vino, and save the internet for later. Use it to make money, to write to friends.

Watch that movie, but wasting time on this has the same effect on the brain as drinking a glass of water from the Ganges. This is a scientific fact. I read it somewhere.

About the Car

We gotta talk. I am a car fanatic. A veritable maniac for the steel, rubber and exhaust. I have owned MANY cars - and will eventually make a list of them as well as my opinion. Like a buyer’s guide for stupid young men.

But having moved to a normal-sized European city, it is now very clear that the car is a problem. In Ljubljana we barely use our car (and we only have one).

When we were in Canada we had three. The third was usually some sort of money-pit passion thing. The last one was a Range Rover.

Owning that thing was like living with a supermodel with a penchant for randomly punching you in the face. So pretty. So painful.

Fact: Cars suck 90% of the time.

Obviously you need one in some places. Cool. Then move to a place where you don’t need one to buy milk and eggs and get the kids to school. Honestly - it’s is worth every euro-cent.

In other words, get the hell out of the suburbs.

Buy the smallest car that will fit your brood. Then put a massive roof rack bin on top and win at the game of life. Roof racks are for winners.

I hate the idea of electric cars. But if you can charge it at home and drive around the city, then I can see the point.

Going further? Rent a van. Get on a train. Anything but a second car.

Let’s be real. When I was growing up, in a country that used to be called Yugoslavia, this is the kind of car families had. And they took it on vacation. Kids were happy. It was fine.

Conzoomerism

Nuff said. But I’ll say a bit more.

More stuff, more head aches.

The interesting thing about moving from Canada, and a 5000 sq foot house, to a neat European-sized apartment - at 1/5th the size - is that you simply cannot buy so much. No room for it.

The fridge is smaller. The closets are smaller. The garage is smaller.

Not buying things if you have the money and room for them is really hard. It takes willpower.

The work-around for this is self-limitation. Sell the house, pay off something smaller, live below your means.

In Summer-y

Summer is approaching. This is the view from my our small apartment terrace. We will be spending half our days on the terrace, and not mowing lawns. We will be BBQing and reading and playing.

We will have our phones locked away. We will not order food.

We will live like it’s 1986.