(written on the 9th from notes taken previously)
My first action every morning now is pulling up my phone to see the latest with Iran. 😅
It’s dominating my days… listening to video after video after video from all sorts of different people with all sorts of different backgrounds and all sorts of different perspectives and connections to what’s going on.
I’m still conflicted, though there are positions that some take that simply boggle my mind.
The most frequent thought that comes to my mind, and perhaps it’s just as indicative or more so of my own faults as anything, but I just feel like I see so much… arrogance.
So much judgement. So much… certainty.
How can people know that much to be able to be that certain? Often, the more I learn, the less certainty I have.
It seems to me that so much of what I see broadcast far and wide is a result of inaccurate or incomplete information that drives assumption, judgement, emotion, etc, that, when landing upon a foundation of arrogance, leads to certainty.
[sigh]
Anyway…
😅
I headed into Invercargill and bought groceries. No chips or soda or crackers or cookies or candy.
Though I might have bought some ice cream. 🙃
I was also quite pleased to have been able to use my credit card on a self-pay pump. I don’t know what happened. Maybe when I called and had a pin added to my account months ago it just took this long for it to take effect?
🤷
Whatever it is, I’m grateful to be able, apparently, to use my credit card anywhere I like now.
That’ll save some money on gas, as the self-pay places are always cheaper than places with stores attached to them. 🙏
From Invercargill, I headed down to the south coast again to head on over to a place called Gemstone Beach, a beach I’d had recommended to me.
Reading the reviews, I was disappointed to find that multiple reviews mentioned people showing up with buckets to gather up as many beautiful stones as they could fit in the buckets and head off with them.
When I got to the beach, there were almost no stones whatsoever.
Sad.
I snapped a couple pictures, and then continued along my way, snapping more pictures.
As has been my habit, I followed a couple of roads as far as I could take them, just to see what was there (well, I might not have made it all the way to the end of the second one. I got to a place where it kind of looked like I was about to enter private property, and the road might have gone a little bit further, but I didn’t want to bother anyone).
After leaving the coast, I headed north, thinking about going to Clifden Caves, but it was getting late enough in the day that I didn’t want to risk getting to the freedom camping place too late and finding no available space for me, so I decided to do the caves tomorrow and after realizing I was on the wrong side of a bridge, swung back around and headed to the freedom camping place and got myself parked in a nice little spot.
The area next to the bridge was beautiful. And the old bridge itself was pretty cool. I walked around the bridge area, snapping pictures, for a bit.
Then I veged out for a couple of hours, or so, until the sun started going down, when I popped back out to take pictures of the sunset.
Thinking that the pale colors of the sunset were in the process of diminishing, I decided to walk along a dirt road upriver. I didn’t get all that far, gratefully, before I saw the colors rapidly changing from pale pink to orange.
So I booked it back to the bridge, actually running 🙃, because where I was, trees were obscuring the view, and I also wanted to get pictures of the bridge and sunset together.
Gratefully, I made it in time to snap at least a handful of pictures before the bright colors faded. 🙏
Beautiful. 😊
On the opposite side of the sky, a large moon began to rise above the hills in the distance.
😊
A veged out the rest of the night.
I’m not doing as well as I was before. I crashed pretty hard the other night (relapse) after starting to feel like I was turning the corner.
That’s been rough. I’ve lost so much of the fight I used to have within me. Haven’t been doing well since the crash.
Still kicking, though.
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 