2021: New Year, New Liberty
Since it's 2021 now, I figured it'd be appropriate to kick off the year with a post about my intentions for the year. Of course everything is subject to change without notice, see the entirety of 2020 if you seek examples.
2020 was an awesome year. Full of adversity that was very strong. But remember, God will not allow us to be tried or tempted beyond what we can handle, and we can do all things through the strength of Christ. My nonreligious friends will roll their eyes, but I like to add in the verse that says the word and spirit of God is all-natural. You can translate that loosely to being that a natural and right lifestyle is unstoppable. Not that you'll be immortal, but if you're living right, it's hard as hell to keep you down. Overall, I think most folks felt the strain of distillation in the last year. I'd go so far to claim that everyone is more themselves now than they were a year ago, and if someone is unhappy with the product of their distillation, go inwards and work on things.
January 10, second snow of 2021
I've never been much of a resolution maker when it comes time to buy a new calendar. The last couple years I made vague goals and worked inside them to varying degrees of success. Small steps toward better physical health have got me feeling better than I have since when I can't remember. Embracing an intentional community has brought my family peace and prosperity in times that could have been hardship and poverty. I can truly say that 2020 was a badass year. Kinda how putting steel in a fire can temper it, the adversity made the past year an incredible experience.
Going forward, I've got some goals to work towards. These will likely be recurring themes on the blog this year. For one, I need to earn more money off the books. To start, I'm going to be cross posting on both Hive and Steem so that I can pump the blog revenues up. I'm also listing my 3D printing services in various places to see if I can get any sales for that. A little crypto side gig or three would be great. It's not a paying gig, but one of my more recent projects is writing for a liberty magazine called Road to Autonomy. I'll be cross publishing my articles both there and here in hopes of reaching a larger audience. I think a lot of folks on here will like the content that Dharma is compiling there.
New enclosure for the printer, all wrapped up
Of course, writing isn't everything, and will likely never pay all the bills, it's just my favorite form of self expression, and it's nice to make a few bucks off of it. Other projects for the year will of course include the homestead, where I've been prepping more grow space than we've ever used. With my local intentional community, I just took part in a group seed buy from the Great American Seed Up. In the forming of this community and it's various relationships, a great focus had been on collective food production and trading for homegrown foods. Thus the rabbits and their waste streams that feed the garden to help bring in some more food autonomy for like minded local friends.
Autonomy will be the main theme of the year for me I think. After the assaults of the last year, it's becoming ever more obvious to many of us that we're too easily manipulated by the whims of people that claim some kind of authority over us. That's a wake-up call, because in the wake of 2020, it's a call to put your money where your mouth is and start walking the walk. I'll say what I say to everyone: seeds, reloading components, and printer filament. That's what's on Nate's autonomy short list. The long list is, well, longer.
In the last year, my digital Life has suffered greatly due to the fact that my bioregional life has been so greatly enhanced. I do seek to continue that. Fireside chats with my friends have been awesome. I'm no longer making progress by myself, I'm working within a community of like minded men with families. My true peers. This year I'd like to see more huge progress made on that front. It's great for the soul, and it's great for progress.
Ahh, my favorite part of the house.
Digital autonomy is perhaps one of my more immediate goals, and something I've started reclaiming on a small scale already. I'll be posting more on it later though, you can bet on that. 2021 is the year Nate's digital footprint decreases a lot. Com on, join me! Hit follow so you can get in on my basic noob tips for internet autonomy as I work on that project myself.
Of course, as @riverflows told me, personal and bioregional relationships are always more important than global digital ones. I'm going to keep working my plans here with my community involvement as top priority over anything digital. My people here are what I'm going to need most when the cards are down. That's how it's supposed to be, and the most subversive and productive thing you can do nowadays is set up a personal tribe and culture, and network with the people around you.
Just wanted to put out a little "new year, new me" post because it's chronologically relevant. I've been working on it for a week or so, as I've been largely uninspired to blog. I wish I had the time to do both, but my tribe comes first. Of course, it's not new year new me, it's the same old me, but getting better. I hope you're getting better too and improving yourself in appropriate ways considering the road behind you. Anyone else building on their 2020 experiences? What are you doing to increase your own autonomy?
Love from Texas
Nate 💚