Musings

I was thinking today why some people like technology and some people don't. I think it is a little why some people like Animals and pets and some people don't. If you have uses or affinity with something you are more likely to associate with that something whether it be animals or people or whatever or tools or technology.

My experience growing up in the 1950s was that people couldn't always be trusted. So, this was proven even more correct in the 1960s and beyond in my life. So, even the level of trust I had put into people was way too much for them to keep me alive. So, I had to step back even more regarding the trust I put into people.

However, my parents and I had a very deep trust relationship. However, when I tried to extend it to my church this didn't work very well because I had no idea how extreme people can get yet, much to my dismay around age 21 or so.

So, I had to step back from churches to some degree after realizing that many people who go to church are basically nuts in their extremism. So, this was a very rude awakening that almost cost me my life in the process of learning this.

I think that religion likely makes more people go insane than even drugs or alcohol.

So, communing with the wilderness and understanding basic psychology I found 100% more useful than what people told me about religion in the end.

My parents were very special people. My father was a valedictorian of his high school Class and my mother was a Scottish Intuitive type of person. People said of her, "She doesn't need religion. She will make up her own as she goes along" which is basically what she told me herself. I have this knack as well.

There is what is useful to believe in and then there are the completely ridiculous things many people believe in. And separating what is useful to believe in and what  is going to end your life, basically, is really important in life.

So, always I have been really surprised how many people believe in things that eventually cost them their lives in one way or another.

For example, I had a friend who was religious but also a closet gay, He finally came out to his friends in his 50s but had been married to two women and the first wife basically killed herself possibly because she realized her husband was at core a gay man trying to be straight.

But, since he was religious most of his life he had to live in denial of who he really was. So, by the time he came out he was too old to start a new long term relationship and I think this contributed to his early death.

This was very hard to loose a friend that I had had a completely platonic relationship since I was 6 years old. In fact, this person was one of several peers that convinced me that I should go to college.

When I grew up everyone did not go to college like now because at 17 then you could support 5 people and own 2 cars then very easily if you were a white male in the 1950s and early 1960s.

So, my best friend from when I was 6 died many years ago now and my best friend from school (from junior high) passed away also a few years ago. So, basically I have no old friends left alive from about before I was 21 when I got close to a friend from church who started climbing mountains and rock climbing and cross country skiing with me. He is still alive. But, of my closest friends he is the last one left from the old days. Of course there is my son who is about 40 now, but he now lives far away with his wife and my grandson, and my other two daughters are in Oregon and Washington. So, life is really different now in my late 60s.

I guess I have been able to pretend in some ways that I was in my late 30s or early 40s into my late 60s. But now, it is sort of a rude awakening to wake up and realize my actual age. However, if one is adaptable enough one might live to 100 or beyond.