Knowing and experiencing a disconnected world is one of the few things I wouldn’t give up from childhood. I was enamored with the Internet when popular adoption began in the mid to late 90s but it was a separate world that you could actually exit. I could still communicate with peers and friends without this layer of memes and affected irony between us.
I managed to stumble into traditional home ownership by sheer dumb luck and its not the great achievement talking heads make it out to be. Its done more to make me hate the commodification of what should be a basic human right more than the year or so I spent homeless as a kid.
You get told by everyone that its the ultimate signifier of financial security and independence but all I found was a more insidious method of capitalist exploitation. Losing an apartment to rent hikes or eviction eats serious shit but I always managed to bounce back enough to secure another place before my ass was tossed to the pavement. I get my house forclosed on or lose it in a freak accident and I’m not only homeless by also financially ruined in a manner that would take a decade or more to recover from.
I don’t argue with people John Brown would have shot.
“Yeah, we kill civilians in droves but at least we’re eco friendly about it.”
I miss DIY culture so much. I grew up impoverished so replacement wasn’t always an option for us. I learned basic household repair and electronics just by watching the adults in my family do appliance repairs or tinker with old radio equipment.