Trapped.

Just a series of rants and an opinion of family and societal issues. But hey; At least I'm not in a high tower unloading my issues on an unprepared & unsuspecting populace. This is a publicly acceptable method of blowing off steam and loosening the frustrations I've run up against.

Trapped;
Have you ever felt as if you're trapped with almost no way out of your predicament except to follow the course you've embarked upon? A philosphopic problem in a world where free will and mirad branches of permutations branch out before us as we look for ways of changing our lives or ways our lives are progressing.

The trapped feeling doesn't just apply to those in jobs where one may be pigeon holed to a position, but sometimes to our family lives as well. I was raised in a clanish type of family where familial responsibilities where given a priority and sometimes the encompassing effect is extended on to outhers out side the immediate grouping. That in some part explains the support and close relationship I've had with my fellow soldiers when in the Army as it service became a surrogate family of sorts. You protect family regardless of the blood relationship. It also leads to my current predicament with my brothers and their families. I'm boxed into helpinjg them because of my mind set; and the sense of abandonment if I where to take a course of action branching immediately away.

Well, I'm providing my brothers a time period where, I say, I'm walking and we need to wrap up events by then. Yes, in order to branch out yet again I need to set a limit on what I'll do to assist my brothers.

Well so much for the current feeling of being trapped. After I finish some personal commitments I've made over the course of the last few months I'll be free to wander where ever the roads and trails may lead.

I think also I shall be headed again to the Florida Keys for the winter, as the milder weather there is more agreeable. That and being able to stay on the islands for roughly $400 a month not counting the costs of food and entertainment is an enticing feature. So a stay from November through March could be supplemented by picking up a part time position; To that end I've also reconstituted my mechanics tool box. While the tools are geared to the American Inch Standard/SAE. I also am able to slide to the metric side of the house. Although my heavier tools include wrenches ranging up to 1&1/2 inch open & closed end. I'm also limited in the I do not have an Impact Gun for some more difficult nuts & bolts although I do have sets of Impact sockets SAE & Metric. Where does this lead to you may ask? Back to my last purchased vehicle the Cargo Van. Where would I place the tools in a sedan?

Even vehicles can trap us in a sense. It really depends upon how we percieve ourselves the type of vehicle we want vs the type of vehicle we need. If we have a desire for a sports car and choose that route we are then limited by financial considerations and space accomdations within the vehicle type for what we can bring along on trips. While I found a pick up truck useful, placing a cargo top on the bed reduces the full payload space and functionality while allowing one to be able to better secure goods from theft. A cargo van allows longer bed space than a pick up truck, higher interrior height than most caps will allow and the ability to add a rack system to carry some items overhead if needed. So now in a sense I'm trapped with a 20th century vehicle model that does not achieve fuel efficencies that should of drasticly improved from the 1960's 70's and 80's.

Why does our fuel economy suck? Is it because we can not build more economical vehicles or is it because we've been sold a false bill of goods? Truth is we've been sold a false bill of goods and still continue to buy into it. We as a society do not need ever more powerful engines and faster vehicles which become burdened by safety innovations which further increase vehicle weight neccessitating more powerful engines and requiring more fuel. We need to think logically about how we use our vehicles and how we interact with technology. We're trapped again by the mind set that we are smarter and better than our forebearers. Oh we are clever enough and we use technologies they may only of dreamed of, but we use it in stupid ways.

We as simple biological entities can still only provide focused thought and action to one complex task at a time. Driving an automobile is still a complex task although it has been made easier by the development of automatic transmissions and power steering; we still need to focus on speed, angles, trajectories, vectors, road conditions and other items over which we have limited or no control what so ever. The majority of drivers have a severly limited skill set. They don't realize they can more closely control their vehicles by selecting what range of gears they can operate in even with automatic transmissions and most almost always choose faster speeds than conditions warrant. We are again trapped into a faster is better mode of thought.

So we with our limited technologies want to achieve faster speeds in vehicles with design limits that can not accomplish what we want on roads never designed for those types of speeds let alone the volumes of traffic experienced today over the assumtions of traffic loads projected in the 1950's. Again we've trapped ourselves into an unsustainable model of transportation based upon pavement, tires, fuel types, space available and volume of traffic. We've about reached end point and are trapped by what we've achieved.

Trapped, a interesting way of describing what we done to limit ourselves. I feel trapped by famial commitments; we as a society by grasping for things we don't really need have trapped ourselves into an unsustainable economic engine and developmental mode; As a creatures who are clever but not overly smart in the ways we adapt to our changing technologies.

Trapped by unsustainable transportation models; Trapped by unsustainable economic models where greed closes jobs and ships positions overseas; Trapped by the very nature of our constructs. Homes too large to maintain properly without outlays of capital beyond the ability to be earned. trapped by roads and bridges built on the cheap and crumbling in disrepair due to costs. Trapped by building a disposable society based upon the concept of a disposable income.

So now that I recognize that I am trapped into a limited selection of choices on how to progress without becoming further ensnared in the identified problems. The open ended questions to be identified are all related to how should I proceed next? I can sense a way out and there is no trapping me, if I can think my way though the course of actions I may need to follow.