Form: Diary

(I miss Ukraine. I miss L’viv. I miss Kyiv. I miss the nonsense at Boryspol Airport. I miss the insane government bureaucracy. I miss the fragile banking system. I miss catching the flu on the subway. I miss the train. I miss the unfinished bridge, the potholes, the traffic. I even miss living in a khrushchevka with neighbors. I miss the street-dogs. I miss my favorite coffee shops. I miss the food. I miss cooking shaslik in the park. I miss the people. I miss my friends. I have had nothing but unpleasantness since returning to the states. Everything works here in the states – EXCEPT people, culture, and politics. We live in an empire of many countries fighting to dominate others with their different cultures, and it’s resulting in a contentious environment of hate.

(simple ascetic retirement joy)
There is something so luxurious about sleeping till 10 – because you need to, reading the news with a cup of coffee, and then going about your day. For my whole life I just don’t feel right going to work before nine or ten AM. (One of the reasons I start and run my own companies.)

Similarly, I only lived on a working dairy farm when very young. But getting up early, working around the farm with people and animals you care about, sure seems far better for some of us than the preparation for, travel too, and ‘occupation of’ office space. 😉

Farming doesn’t pay today. It’s similar to the rest of entrepreneurship, in that you make less money but you’re at least enjoying your life, and not subject to the nonsense of others. 😉

Working from home provides the same ‘peace of mind’. So much of our lives is wasted in preparation, travel, and posturing time in central locations. Where, I would love it if most of us worked together, even internationally, working from home, with team members constantly on the equivalent of zoom.

THis of course doesn’t apply to those who do physical labor. But then, IMO those folks need higher income to pay for the ‘cost’ of NOT being able to work from home. 😉

(I want to move back to Ukraine or Russia. But that’s not gonna happen now. Have friends in Portugal. But can’t do that unless my health recovers sufficiently. I’d move to the north of the UK but I”d end up in prison every time I opened my mouth to say something even vaguely…

My mother, thinking clowns were cute, bought two drawings of clown faces from one of the circuses and hung them in my bedroom. The faces looked directly at the viewer, so they gave the impression of watching you. I spent my entire childhood avoiding those things without ever asking her to get rid of them. 😉