Category Archives: Solitude

I’ve spent most of a lifetime avoiding virtue successfully without having to devote a lot of energy to doing it.  But it’s gotten a lot more difficult.

For instance, I predominantly eat veggies along with some rice.  If I feel the need for protein I throw in some eggs.  Sounds harmless enough.  I’ve got a rice steamer with a platform compartment in the top allows me to steam a mess of veggies and rice faster than I can tell it.  I love it, and it’s easy to clean afterward without using any water.  I run a 1.1 penny US baby-wipe wipe over it after I pour out the vittles and it’s ready to run another race.

But suddenly I’ve discovered not eating meat is at least a virtue, in some cases, a religion.  Wedges me firmly between a rock and a hard place.  I’ll eat a bit of meat sometimes when I can afford it, but honestly I feel better saving the money against the possibility of something coming up so’s I need money.

I’ve got a little sausage in the freezer I had Gale pick up for me last time he was in San Angelo, but in some sense it’s like the quarter-bottle of Y2K Jack Daniels Black Label sitting on the microwave drawing dust.   It’s just too good to use, except on special occasions.

So, for the purposes of not being virtuous, the sausage doesn’t help much more than the Jack Daniels.   I need to come up with some cheap, non-virtuous things I can do that don’t require burning any gas, borrowing a vehicle, or glutting myself more than I do when I cook up a nice Idaho potato, chop up some jalapeno, onion, half-stick of butter and smother it in yogurt or cottage cheese.

Lessee. 

pride…. heck, I’m already up to my Adam’s apple with pride.  Any more pride might be a hazard to my health.

covetousness  Maybe that’s a possibility.  Maybe I can think of something to want really badly.  Nothing much comes to mind, but this is too important to reject out of hand.

envy  … That would be pretty cool, finding someone to envy.  But I can’t recall running across anyone I thought was enviable in so long I’m not sure I ever did.

lust … Nope.  Donealready beentheredonethat with lust.  I ain’t going there again.

anger  …Took me 50-odd years to figure out I was an angry person, same as everyone claimed I was.  Big job of work getting rid of it once I figured out I was.  Anger needs to make a home in people who don’t know the tricks.  I don’t think I could hold onto anger in a way it would find palatable.

gluttony . . .   Gluttony might work. I’ve got 100 pounds of milo maize out there.  Maybe boil some up, put some butter on it, maybe some pepper and onions.  Curry.  But I’d have to drop in some sausage to keep it from metamorphosing into something virtuous.  Something to think about, anyway.

sloth …  Sheeze!  Sloth is absurd.  It’s a red herring they hang out there pretending to offer up hope in case a person can’t avoid virtue some other way.  But hells bells!  When’s a person supposed to find any time for sloth when there’s only 24 hours in a day?  Sloth is BS.  Forget it.

That milo’s looking better and better.  At least until I can think of some more respectable way to clear my conscience without bankrupting myself.

Old Jules