Penalty - for TRAVELLING !
More crap from the crazy man downstairs... however...
The post for today is about the travelling bug penalty...
I was born to wander. Cuz I'm a travellin' man. Heard it in a love song....
How did this happen? Well, Celtic people - which is a term I am here using broadly to include associated people - have a long history of wandering, going even further back than the Romani. Celts were born of the steppes above the Black Sea, pushing back and forth, with each new influx of other tribes or civilisations. In fact, I see them as a spearhead of humanity, which had already been everywhere else - Africa, South-East Asia, etc., and who just kept moving on, looking for new homes. As peripheral barbarians, they were also a kind of first front for more stable, agrarian, expanding cultures - kind of like the fur traders in early America. Not racist at all, and incorporating a lot of other wild genes, including those from Neandertal, who has been thought to have had red hair.
They were the original Indo-Europeans, which went back about 6,000 years from present. They learned to control horses, the harness, the wheel, mobile yurts, yogurt, and wine - which was not watered down, like that of the Greeks. Alcohol, for most of history, helped prevent spread of diseases, like cholera, etc. Their women were warriors, which was thought to be the origin of the legend of the Amazons. They extended down to the Mediterranean, were hired by Greeks, and also helped in the Greek wine trade, which extended up through "Marsailles", Vix , Galacia, and into Penzance, and so on. So, some Celts came up to the British Isles in this manner, or, completely around Gibralter.
This whole set-up paved the way for the introduction of early Christianity, or the Madonna culture. Included a lot of the areas visitted by Saint Paul. And, you might also be interested that Jesus was said to have come through, and stayed in, Galilee, another outpost of the Celts, and was spurned for living what was referred to as, "The Easy Way." Presumably, that meant not hewing to Hebrew or Roman strictures, drinking wine, and hanging out with prostitutes, as if they were actual human beings. Originally, Jesus was thought to have come from around Iran/Pakistan, or Persia, which was also infiltrated by Celts and related Indo-Europeans. This is the area were the Dravidic texts also originated.
Anyway, a few centuries, B.C.E., these Celts pushed their way westward, mainly down the Danube, where they met up with Danes and other proto-scandinavians. Many of them had incorporated Slavic language, which led to the creation of the German language around "Denmark". But, they also pushed on, largely because of the expansion of the Han Dynasty in "China" and met up with earlier Celts in the British Islands. Hundreds of years after that, there were pushes by the Romans, the Normans, and the Catholics, causing many Gaulic Celts to emigrate, towards "Britain/Ireland, as well. One of these general waves included many Celts from Brittany, leading to the naming of these western Islands, "Britain." Brittany, France, remains largely Celtic.
So, you have this continuous westward movement by unhappy Celts, refusing to hand over their wildness to encroaching civilisations and their rules, which always benefitted those "at the top", the landed gentry, the soldiers, the priests, and so on. Well, another move westward was of a lot of Dutch and Britains to America, in search of freedom of religion, and rights first documented in the Magna Carta. Many descendants of those Celts now live in Kentucky, Tennessee, N.C., etc., and upper New England. Later, the American Founding Fathers included a lot of Scots-Irish, i.e., Celts, (at least 50%), including Jefferson, Hamilton, Addams, Paine and, later, Jackson, and, later, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and, um, Trump. It's been a mixed bag.
Well, during the cruel treatment of the English, resulting in the Irish Potato Blight, many Irish immigrated to America. And so did many who sough gold or silver during the mid 1800's. Move westward, young man! Many descendants of these Celtic miners ended up in Montana, and around them parts. But a lot of Irish immigrants were recruited to fight in the Civil War, ON BOTH SIDES. One major enticement to fight was the promise of land, but there other reasons.
So, all together, their is travel in the blood of the Irish, the Scots, and related people. A never-ending drive to move west, with an attitude of deserved freedom, the right to create, and all that. This has been a defining philosophy through American history, which has also resulted in some big problems, a la, Manifest Destiny. Hitler's Germans really picked up, and took to the extreme, a lot of American moral imperialism. I could go on about the problems.
But, we all tend to agree, there are mainly good values in wanting to be free of, e.g., Big Brother, Theocracy, injustice, want, oppression, and so forth, correct? The whole world has followed this movement, rather in an irresponsible manner, when it comes to the planet's health. But, all this is a topic for other posts.
I am "100% Irish", with a strong Scottish influence. My parents travelled from Europe to Australia, where they raised 5 kids. I was the last. At about 1.5 years old, I was taken on a long voyage to America - kidnapped. I do not know what I went through, since I was a baby, but I am sure it was an ordeal. I pretty much know that I preferred to remain in Tasmania - a forested island, lots of beaches, small town, wonderful people, high standard of living, and everyone spoke English. And - they were mainly Celtic and English. What could go wrong? I guess it was just that travelling bug...
At about 6 years old, my father lost his job at the Brewery, and took one at an industrial bakery - in a new city, (Ye Olde City), so - we moved once again. In that city, we would later move to a new house. A pretty awful decision my parents made was to send me to the cities POOR Catholic grade school for 7 years, which pretty much cemented my standing as an outsider in this country.
But, in high school, a "rich" Catholic school, I gained about 500 friends, it seems. And many of them were of Irish derivation. So, one of the best things my father ever did for me was to say, "Yes," to my going on a month-long trip with 3 of my Irish buddies. (My mother was against it). So, it was absolutely, "Go west, young man!" One of the best times of my life. However, even then, I had some kind of CFS virus - not full-blown, like today. But I was sometimes edgy, slow to sleep, and, when I got home, I pretty much had to sleep for days. It was great, though. Then, of course, after high school, I got into my car and went to Madison, without any plan. Madison was the best time of my life. It was also were I collapsed from CFS.
I just want to do this little aside, for a certain LJ friend, who will appreciate it. Along the way, my buddies and I would camp at KOA, etc. But, there was a spot in California - in a town - where we just decided to throw our sleeping bags down on a large open lawn - apparently a park, with kids play structures around. the next morning, we were awaken by dozens of little kids around us, chattering away. We had been sleeping in a school playground. But, the teachers were all happy with this. So, they invited us into the school to wash up, talk, play with the kids, etc. It was so sweet! We felt like dumb, cumbersome giants, drinking out of tiny, low-set drinking fountains. And pissing into tiny, low-set urinals. But, it was really great. I'm sure some of those kids grew up and still remember that. Maybe some of them became terrorists and all that sort of thing. How nice..
So... when I got back from our month-long trip through the American West, my whole family was completely distant and nonchalant. I gave each of them a present. Then it was pretty much as if nothing had happened. Nothing I had to say was of any relevance. I would later learn that this is how jealousy acts. Sad. The best, most expensive present I bought was a pair of little bison horns - probably just plastic. I put them above the stairway going upstairs.
A few years later, my jealous, drunken father came up, and donned this pair of horns, while I was nowhere to be seen. Which is pretty pathetic. A few of my laughing siblings got a picture of him, holding the horns to his head, laughing mockingly. I never mentioned the many years, growing up, when my father would come home, drunk, slamming doors or yelling, scaring the kids. And, you know what? Everyone, other than myself, has all decided to forget this. I don't see how a person can choose to forget any part of the reality they have seen. I just do not understand that.
Well, so, my siblings all had the travel bug in them, as well. My older sister had once run away to the southwest with a boyfriend. (Actually, she is the only other person who even halfway remembers the dysfunction of the past).
So, I just want to note how my own desire to travel was henceforth addressed by others in my family, henceforth... I once told a sister that I would like to go to Australia. her response, "But you CAN'T LIVE IN THE PAST!!" How absurd, BS is that? I was 1.5 years old when I was kidnapped - how would going to Australia be living in my past?! Pffft...
What else - oh... So, I say to my father, when he actually did this rare thing of ASKING me what I want, "I would like to travel." "Oh," he scowled disappointingly, "What are you ever going to find there that you can't find HERE?!" Again, Pffft... Are you serious. This guy travelled the globe, and now he is chastising men for even thinking about travelling?!
And, since it was I who wanted to go to Australia, my bastard of an older brother had to go off and, what? Travel to Australia! When he came back, which a tonne of expensive gifts for everyone, and with everyone perked up as usual to ingest his loud-mouthed bullshit, I said I would like to go there, some day, as well. And what did he do? He fucking SHOUTED AT me:
"Why would you want to go there?!! They're all a bunch of rednecks!!"
This is what I am talking about.
BUT - I just want to emphasize this whole epigenetic thing... How travelling can be in the blood. travelling is definitely a human characteristic - in the genes. "Those are MY genes!" But, it can be enhanced or brought out even more-so by events in the past - in one's parents' past - in one's ancestor's past. This is all thought that has been reinforced in fairly recent studies - in the field of epigenetics. It is always something I have known, despite society's absolute rejection of Lamarkism. It is a phenomenon of inheritance somewhere between strict genetics and Lamarkism. And, I also have known that while energy-level; is inheritted from the mother - activity, exploratory behaviour, etc,. can be inheritted form the male, via the Y chromosome. Science has yet to confirm this. But, mark my words.
When my father lived in Tasmania, he spent those years chopping down trees, dealing with branches, working on a garden - just like when he was on the Irish farm, as a boy. I inheritted all this, through my father. Just like the travel bug. The love of these things is deep in me. My competence in managing trees is A1. Needless to say, wheedling little siblings have inserted themselves as some kind of authority, seeking to stop such activities, pretending concern, but hiding the true motivation of jealousy. Well, those may be the traits inheritted by a later father, right?
Should I have a son, which, who knows, maybe I do - he will be a whiz with computers. He will enjoy physical exercise. He will be very, very smart. And he will be very independent. These will all be things he will have inherited through me. BUT - should I ever say as much, would I not be, as well, rebuked by the same sort of authoritative wheedlers? Bad qualities, in the human race, pass down, from generation to generation. Depending on your perspective, they may be seen as important, powerful, or relevant to civilisation - or, they may be seen as pure evil: The sort of things the Celts have been fighting to get away from through all their history. There's the rub. There's that travelling bug. There are those travelling genes.
The post for today is about the travelling bug penalty...
I was born to wander. Cuz I'm a travellin' man. Heard it in a love song....
How did this happen? Well, Celtic people - which is a term I am here using broadly to include associated people - have a long history of wandering, going even further back than the Romani. Celts were born of the steppes above the Black Sea, pushing back and forth, with each new influx of other tribes or civilisations. In fact, I see them as a spearhead of humanity, which had already been everywhere else - Africa, South-East Asia, etc., and who just kept moving on, looking for new homes. As peripheral barbarians, they were also a kind of first front for more stable, agrarian, expanding cultures - kind of like the fur traders in early America. Not racist at all, and incorporating a lot of other wild genes, including those from Neandertal, who has been thought to have had red hair.
They were the original Indo-Europeans, which went back about 6,000 years from present. They learned to control horses, the harness, the wheel, mobile yurts, yogurt, and wine - which was not watered down, like that of the Greeks. Alcohol, for most of history, helped prevent spread of diseases, like cholera, etc. Their women were warriors, which was thought to be the origin of the legend of the Amazons. They extended down to the Mediterranean, were hired by Greeks, and also helped in the Greek wine trade, which extended up through "Marsailles", Vix , Galacia, and into Penzance, and so on. So, some Celts came up to the British Isles in this manner, or, completely around Gibralter.
This whole set-up paved the way for the introduction of early Christianity, or the Madonna culture. Included a lot of the areas visitted by Saint Paul. And, you might also be interested that Jesus was said to have come through, and stayed in, Galilee, another outpost of the Celts, and was spurned for living what was referred to as, "The Easy Way." Presumably, that meant not hewing to Hebrew or Roman strictures, drinking wine, and hanging out with prostitutes, as if they were actual human beings. Originally, Jesus was thought to have come from around Iran/Pakistan, or Persia, which was also infiltrated by Celts and related Indo-Europeans. This is the area were the Dravidic texts also originated.
Anyway, a few centuries, B.C.E., these Celts pushed their way westward, mainly down the Danube, where they met up with Danes and other proto-scandinavians. Many of them had incorporated Slavic language, which led to the creation of the German language around "Denmark". But, they also pushed on, largely because of the expansion of the Han Dynasty in "China" and met up with earlier Celts in the British Islands. Hundreds of years after that, there were pushes by the Romans, the Normans, and the Catholics, causing many Gaulic Celts to emigrate, towards "Britain/Ireland, as well. One of these general waves included many Celts from Brittany, leading to the naming of these western Islands, "Britain." Brittany, France, remains largely Celtic.
So, you have this continuous westward movement by unhappy Celts, refusing to hand over their wildness to encroaching civilisations and their rules, which always benefitted those "at the top", the landed gentry, the soldiers, the priests, and so on. Well, another move westward was of a lot of Dutch and Britains to America, in search of freedom of religion, and rights first documented in the Magna Carta. Many descendants of those Celts now live in Kentucky, Tennessee, N.C., etc., and upper New England. Later, the American Founding Fathers included a lot of Scots-Irish, i.e., Celts, (at least 50%), including Jefferson, Hamilton, Addams, Paine and, later, Jackson, and, later, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and, um, Trump. It's been a mixed bag.
Well, during the cruel treatment of the English, resulting in the Irish Potato Blight, many Irish immigrated to America. And so did many who sough gold or silver during the mid 1800's. Move westward, young man! Many descendants of these Celtic miners ended up in Montana, and around them parts. But a lot of Irish immigrants were recruited to fight in the Civil War, ON BOTH SIDES. One major enticement to fight was the promise of land, but there other reasons.
So, all together, their is travel in the blood of the Irish, the Scots, and related people. A never-ending drive to move west, with an attitude of deserved freedom, the right to create, and all that. This has been a defining philosophy through American history, which has also resulted in some big problems, a la, Manifest Destiny. Hitler's Germans really picked up, and took to the extreme, a lot of American moral imperialism. I could go on about the problems.
But, we all tend to agree, there are mainly good values in wanting to be free of, e.g., Big Brother, Theocracy, injustice, want, oppression, and so forth, correct? The whole world has followed this movement, rather in an irresponsible manner, when it comes to the planet's health. But, all this is a topic for other posts.
I am "100% Irish", with a strong Scottish influence. My parents travelled from Europe to Australia, where they raised 5 kids. I was the last. At about 1.5 years old, I was taken on a long voyage to America - kidnapped. I do not know what I went through, since I was a baby, but I am sure it was an ordeal. I pretty much know that I preferred to remain in Tasmania - a forested island, lots of beaches, small town, wonderful people, high standard of living, and everyone spoke English. And - they were mainly Celtic and English. What could go wrong? I guess it was just that travelling bug...
At about 6 years old, my father lost his job at the Brewery, and took one at an industrial bakery - in a new city, (Ye Olde City), so - we moved once again. In that city, we would later move to a new house. A pretty awful decision my parents made was to send me to the cities POOR Catholic grade school for 7 years, which pretty much cemented my standing as an outsider in this country.
But, in high school, a "rich" Catholic school, I gained about 500 friends, it seems. And many of them were of Irish derivation. So, one of the best things my father ever did for me was to say, "Yes," to my going on a month-long trip with 3 of my Irish buddies. (My mother was against it). So, it was absolutely, "Go west, young man!" One of the best times of my life. However, even then, I had some kind of CFS virus - not full-blown, like today. But I was sometimes edgy, slow to sleep, and, when I got home, I pretty much had to sleep for days. It was great, though. Then, of course, after high school, I got into my car and went to Madison, without any plan. Madison was the best time of my life. It was also were I collapsed from CFS.
I just want to do this little aside, for a certain LJ friend, who will appreciate it. Along the way, my buddies and I would camp at KOA, etc. But, there was a spot in California - in a town - where we just decided to throw our sleeping bags down on a large open lawn - apparently a park, with kids play structures around. the next morning, we were awaken by dozens of little kids around us, chattering away. We had been sleeping in a school playground. But, the teachers were all happy with this. So, they invited us into the school to wash up, talk, play with the kids, etc. It was so sweet! We felt like dumb, cumbersome giants, drinking out of tiny, low-set drinking fountains. And pissing into tiny, low-set urinals. But, it was really great. I'm sure some of those kids grew up and still remember that. Maybe some of them became terrorists and all that sort of thing. How nice..
So... when I got back from our month-long trip through the American West, my whole family was completely distant and nonchalant. I gave each of them a present. Then it was pretty much as if nothing had happened. Nothing I had to say was of any relevance. I would later learn that this is how jealousy acts. Sad. The best, most expensive present I bought was a pair of little bison horns - probably just plastic. I put them above the stairway going upstairs.
A few years later, my jealous, drunken father came up, and donned this pair of horns, while I was nowhere to be seen. Which is pretty pathetic. A few of my laughing siblings got a picture of him, holding the horns to his head, laughing mockingly. I never mentioned the many years, growing up, when my father would come home, drunk, slamming doors or yelling, scaring the kids. And, you know what? Everyone, other than myself, has all decided to forget this. I don't see how a person can choose to forget any part of the reality they have seen. I just do not understand that.
Well, so, my siblings all had the travel bug in them, as well. My older sister had once run away to the southwest with a boyfriend. (Actually, she is the only other person who even halfway remembers the dysfunction of the past).
So, I just want to note how my own desire to travel was henceforth addressed by others in my family, henceforth... I once told a sister that I would like to go to Australia. her response, "But you CAN'T LIVE IN THE PAST!!" How absurd, BS is that? I was 1.5 years old when I was kidnapped - how would going to Australia be living in my past?! Pffft...
What else - oh... So, I say to my father, when he actually did this rare thing of ASKING me what I want, "I would like to travel." "Oh," he scowled disappointingly, "What are you ever going to find there that you can't find HERE?!" Again, Pffft... Are you serious. This guy travelled the globe, and now he is chastising men for even thinking about travelling?!
And, since it was I who wanted to go to Australia, my bastard of an older brother had to go off and, what? Travel to Australia! When he came back, which a tonne of expensive gifts for everyone, and with everyone perked up as usual to ingest his loud-mouthed bullshit, I said I would like to go there, some day, as well. And what did he do? He fucking SHOUTED AT me:
"Why would you want to go there?!! They're all a bunch of rednecks!!"
This is what I am talking about.
BUT - I just want to emphasize this whole epigenetic thing... How travelling can be in the blood. travelling is definitely a human characteristic - in the genes. "Those are MY genes!" But, it can be enhanced or brought out even more-so by events in the past - in one's parents' past - in one's ancestor's past. This is all thought that has been reinforced in fairly recent studies - in the field of epigenetics. It is always something I have known, despite society's absolute rejection of Lamarkism. It is a phenomenon of inheritance somewhere between strict genetics and Lamarkism. And, I also have known that while energy-level; is inheritted from the mother - activity, exploratory behaviour, etc,. can be inheritted form the male, via the Y chromosome. Science has yet to confirm this. But, mark my words.
When my father lived in Tasmania, he spent those years chopping down trees, dealing with branches, working on a garden - just like when he was on the Irish farm, as a boy. I inheritted all this, through my father. Just like the travel bug. The love of these things is deep in me. My competence in managing trees is A1. Needless to say, wheedling little siblings have inserted themselves as some kind of authority, seeking to stop such activities, pretending concern, but hiding the true motivation of jealousy. Well, those may be the traits inheritted by a later father, right?
Should I have a son, which, who knows, maybe I do - he will be a whiz with computers. He will enjoy physical exercise. He will be very, very smart. And he will be very independent. These will all be things he will have inherited through me. BUT - should I ever say as much, would I not be, as well, rebuked by the same sort of authoritative wheedlers? Bad qualities, in the human race, pass down, from generation to generation. Depending on your perspective, they may be seen as important, powerful, or relevant to civilisation - or, they may be seen as pure evil: The sort of things the Celts have been fighting to get away from through all their history. There's the rub. There's that travelling bug. There are those travelling genes.