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"A father is one whose perspective and knowledge are rooted in the underworld and tied to the forefathers, those who have gone before and have created the culture that the father now takes into his hands. A father’s wisdom and moral sensibility find their direction from voices that are not now in life. His initiators are both those literal fathers who have created culture and his own deepest reflections." ~ Thomas Moore 6 AM. I'm on my second burning of wood. It's 25 degrees out there. During my run last night the sky was full of stars. I didn't see the moon. It was a long day on the mail trail, 12 hours. We were short people, so there was no help to deliver Amazon packages. All in all it went smoothly though. I am starting to internalize the route. In other words, things are starting to fall into place. That usually happens for me after the first week of freak out learning a new route. The quote to start out this piece I take seriously. There's the job I perform to help pay the bills, then there's fatherhood. Fatherhood connects me to the generations that came before me, and that will come after. The mail route not so much. I think of hundreds of thousands of years when I think of fatherhood. When it comes to delivering mail maybe a hundred. We've only been delivering mail here for a few hundred years. Fatherhood is part of the long game. The survival of our species and the habitat that gave birth to it and countless others. That's enough riffing for now. I'm happy with it. We live in a flat, fast culture. One guy going deep on his phone for 15 minutes in front of a fire ain't going to hurt anything. I hope it adds something. :-) Off to the mail trail. Fire #116 1.28.25

In a society that is defended against the tragic sense of life, depression will appear as an enemy, an unredeemable malady; yet in such a society, devoted to light, depression, in compensation, will be unusually strong. ~ Thomas Moore

When man interferes with the Tao, the sky becomes filthy, the earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles, creatures become extinct. - The Tao Te Ching 6AM. It's 22 out there. After last week anything above zero seems easy and warm. By easy I mean vehicles will start with less chances of them breaking on the mail route. I reread what I wrote yesterday morning. I'm not happy with most of it. This is typical. I will reread it again to see what I can salvage out of it. I am working on developing something and moving forward on it day by day. Keeping in mind what I am trying to say and why I am telling it to you. It seems it comes back to the Tao quote above. I suffered. I want to understand what's happening. So I don't have to suffer unnecessarily. The Buddhists tell us life is suffering. It's the unnecessary suffering part that focusing on right now. In other words, disequilibrium. That's where I'm at in my process. Thought some of you that follow along might be interested. I'm off to the mail trail this Monday morning. Going to be a heavy day. Mondays always are. I'm well rested and ready for it though. Hope you have a great day! Fire #115 1.27.26

I'm a father of three. Yet I understand why people don't want to have children. I was dead set against having children until I turned 35. We are creating an unsustainable future for our children and grandchildren on so many levels. I think we all feel it on some level. Only some people are willing to admit it though. They don't want to be called antihuman. Yet humans, like any other animal, need habitat to live. Seems like our goal should be to preserve and create as much livable habitat as we can for nonhumans and humans. Then people will want to bring children into the world

I am looking forward to the release of the JFK Files. Keep pulling back the curtain. Government transparency is paramount. Reality hasn't been the same since 2016, and will never be again. Thank you to the people high and low who are making this possible

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, predicted Trump would change the way we see reality. In other words, he pulled back the curtain on a lot of things. Kennedy is another Curtain Puller. Reality hasn't been the same since 2016.

8 AM. Sunday. A day off from delivering mail. I feel like I say this every Sunday. LOL. I love it. I have time to settle in and write. I told you a little bit about my Grandpa again yesterday and shared this quote by Carl Jung: “The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.” ― Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections I said I didn't want to be ruled by the "spirit of gravity." To become part of mass culture and just die having lived for nothing. But to do that, to not let gravity take over, I have to go into my father and grandfathers to help me understand who I am and what I am up to. That's if I am understanding Jung correctly. Because part of me, I think, is living their unlived life. Bear with me here. I hope I haven't gone off the deep end. Back in my mid twenties, after anxiety and depression rattled me to my core, I made up my mind I was going to live my life how I wanted to live it. The way of my father and grandfathers didn't work anymore. That's what the depression and anxiety were telling me. Once I made up my mind and started to live the life I wanted to, it loosened its grip. Granted, this was a process with help in talk therapy, desperate prayer, etc., but the world quit pressing down on me. Some people don't make it through this. This is where "Ishmael," by Daniel Quinn comes in. Right around that time the universe put the book in my hands. A friend actually recommended it, but the event has elevated itself to mythic levels in my personal story. And that's all we are, A story. A fiction. The better we understand this story and fiction the less we fall into the "spirit of gravity." That's my theory anyway. One thing "Ishmael" taught me was that we were no longer happy conquering and ruling the earth. The suicide rates among adolescents had skyrocketed by then. There was alcohol and drug abuse, etc. A general listlessness among the masses. I don't have to say anymore more about that. We can all see it and have been touched by it in someway. At the time I was on the front lines conquering and ruling the earth. I would get up early with my Grandpa and his cousin everyday, head to the woods, fall trees, cut them up into 8 ft. lengths, and collect a paycheck. We never considered the forest community we devastated daily. And there's no blame or shame here. This has been going on for thousands of years. We were just living the myth of God put us here to conquer and rule the world. We were part of a mass of humans past and present that were given the knowledge to decide what lives and dies. Because we were descendants of Adam. Who ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So we got to decide what lived and died. Of course it's all just a myth, but it has real world consequences inside and out ### That's it for now. This is the best I've felt about a piece. I can see this developing. I have told this story in different forms many times before. I'm just refining and deepening it. It's soul work. I think the better we understand our story the better off we will be. Like Freud said, to understand is to forgive. Thank you for reading. :-) Fire #114 1.26.25 P.S. I don't think I could write any of this without being on the mail route I am on. I don't think it's an accident that I now run the route that all of the characters in this story lived on. The places jog the memory to tell the stories it seems.

Twenty one degrees out there at 6 AM. Close to 40 degrees warmer than yesterday morning. I'm banking on the Ford starting no problem. I will have to sweep the snow off from it. We got a few inches of light fluffy stuff yesterday evening. It started in at about 4 PM. Just when I got back to the Post Office. Yesterday I met a customer on the mail route whose Dad knew my Grandpa. The one I lived with and write about once and awhile. He said his Dad nicknamed my Grandpa "Little Big Man." My Grandpa was short, but had a big personality. The customer's Dad and my Grandpa are gone now. Well, anyway, I'm about of writing time here. I started on a piece first thing this morning. I will post it below. There's the feeling and urge to these pieces . . . that I need to develop them. Atleast for my own sake. It's below. I'm off to sweep snow and start a vehicle. I hope you have a great day! Fire #113 1.25.25 ### "The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.” ― Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections I never wanted to be ruled by the "spirit of gravity." So I've always been interested in what my father and grandfathers were up to. Bear with me. Carl Jung quotes do this to me. There is something in Jung that fires me. If you would've asked me when I turned 18 what I was up to moving in with my Grandparents I couldn't have told you this. But at 50 years old I can. Most 18 year olds, it seems, do what they need to do to get away from family and strike out on their own to build a life for themselves.

Cold again. 15 below at 5 AM. I immediately hooked the battery charger up to the Ford with the hope it'll start with a little help. I put it on a trickle charge. It said the battery was at 75%. Hopefully within a hour it'll be at 100. I stopped in to deliver packages to a neighbor that lives 5 miles to the northeast of me the other day. I told him my name. Told him who some of my family was that lives nearby. He got interested. Asked me my name again. Told him that, where I lived, and that my wife and I own Bean Brook Nursery. "Oh, I know who you are! My wife mentions you once and awhile. You write on Facebook. She follows you." "Oh no," I said. "No, it's all good. No worries!" "Good!! I left in embarrassment. I took about an hour to wear off. I have a friend who is a published author. He's written over 20 books. He said one time that a big fear of his is that his neighbors read his books. If I remember correctly. I understand better now why. I'm off to the mail trail. The Ford started! Fire #112 1.24.25

This quote is why I am open to religious ideas. I don't like to suffer. Life can be easier. "I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life - that is to say, over 35 - there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age have given their followers, and none of them has really been healed who did not regain his religious outlook." ~ Carl Jung

I delivered a package to my mom's neighbors the other day. He and his wife live across the road from her. Not directly, but close enough you can see their house from her driveway. They're an older couple. I've seen who I thought were their kids and grandkids around there at times. He speaks with a German accent. I've heard he's from Germany. I've never spoken with his wife. Once and awhile I see the two of them out walking together on the road. They've been living there for well over 5 years now. They used to live over on County A. I deliver mail. I know these things. Sometimes I see he and his wife out in the woods with a chainsaw clearing brush and deadfall. Usually when I see that a pile of firewood, a couple wheelbarrows of jackpine, is left near my mom's woodshed. He's been doing that since they lived there. When my Dad was alive he said he just showed up with the firewood and offered it to him to burn in his outdoor wood boiler. He's been doing it ever since. It's enough for a couple days burning. I delivered a foreign package to him on Tuesday. It needed a signature. I didn't quite make it to the front porch and he was out there ready for it. Said he'd been waiting all afternoon for it. After he signed and I handed him the package I told him who I was. That my mom and grandma lived across the road from him. Then I thanked him for dropping off the firewood for all those years. His face lit up. He asked me my name again. I told him it was Curt with a "C". I figured he's German, that might matter. He told me his name again. Said it was nice to meet me. He was going to say more but I had to tell him I had to get going because I was 3 hours behind. "Ok, then!" He said. And I was on my way. Now he knows who is mailman is. And I know who my mom's neighbor is. Fire #111 1.23.25

35 degrees warmer than yesterday morning. It's almost 10 above. I will not be using either of my vehicles today. They both didn't start yesterday. One the battery was completely dead; the other it was so cold the gas wouldn't fire in the chamber. This is the first time in 16 years I didn't have a mail vehicle of my own available to start the day. I tried and tried to get the Ford Escape going. Our minivan started. So I pulled it around facing the Ford, hooked the jumper cables up, and let 'er idle and charge. I did this 10 times. It wouldn't fire. I pulled it up to the white jeep. Tried once or twice. Battery clicked the starter a couple times. Then I went back to the Ford. Turned it over multiple times, but wouldn't fire. I went in the house and got Annie out of bed for support and ideas. I felt like a failure. It's part of my job to have a vehicle to deliver mail out of. She would've been able to drive me in our pickup, but she had a Doctor's appointment in Duluth she couldn't miss. I should've been there with her. She needed a driver. But days off are hard to get because we're short handed, especially the day after a holiday. I did inquire about her cancelling the appointment. It was a hard no. So I gave in. I went out and started my pickup knowing I was going to be 45 minutes late for work without a vehicle to deliver mail out of. I showed up to work. Let 'em know the situation. And my Postmaster said I will send you out in the Metris van. Which I'm supposed to be driving everyday anyway. That's another story. I got my mail and packages sorted, packed up, and ready to load.. It was 3 hours after I should've been out the door. It was going to be a long day, hours of delivering in the dark. I put the key in the Metris ignition to start and warm it up. Turned it and there was nothing. It was dead. I went back in to ask a friend and fellow carrier if she could drive me in my pickup. She is on light duty from a fall back in late summer. She tore her bicep and injured her shoulder. It required surgery. She's fighting her way back to delivering mail before she can retire in a few years. She said take my mail car. There's only two people in the office I'd trust to drive it, and you're one of them. So I did! I packed every space in her car. By Noon I was off to the mail trail. By 8 PM I was headed back to the Post Office empty. Her mail car sits in my driveway as I type this. I will drive it today. Exchange it for my pickup this afternoon. And come home to try and start my vehicles in warmer weather. Winter in northwest Wisconsin. I hope you have a great day! Fire #110 1.22.25

5:35 AM. It's 25 below out there. I'm on my second burning of wood. Been up since 3 AM. Anxious. The house is slowly cooling down. The fires can't keep up. It didn't get above 0 yesterday, and maybe the day before. If it did, it wasn't much. Today I face holiday mail and packages. It'll be close to twice as much. With the extreme cold who knows if everyone will show up. Vehicle breakdowns and the will to be out in this are factors. Hoping my vehicle starts and makes it through the day. I looked out our southern window at 4:30 AM to see a waning moon high in the southern sky. I could see the glow of it coming in around our curtain. The moon and stars, I need to remember to look up at them more. That's all for right now. Going to enjoy this fire for the few minutes I have before heading off to the mail trail. I hope you have a great day! Fire #109 1.21.25

Joe Rogan's point that RFK Jr. never got sued over what he wrote in the "Real Anthony Fauci" has always stuck with me.

BITCOIN PRICE ON INAUGURATION DAYS: 2009- $0 2013- $15 2017- $895 2021- $35,500 2025 - $108,000 ~ Joel Bomgar

The earlier you get into Bitcoin the better. Get off zero. Learn what you can about it. The more you learn the more you'll buy. That's been my experience. Hopefully I haven't been suckered. Each day that goes by the less it seems that's so.

7:20 AM. 22 below out there. Another day off. I have come to appreciate days off. Especially today. I don't have to hope a mail vehicle starts and dress like I am going ice fishing. Yesterday we drove over to Springbrook to look for my postal badge. I walked the ditch along highway 63 in front of the Post Office and found it! It was a shot in the dark. But there it was laying face down. The white and black of it blending in perfectly with the stained roadside snow. I got lucky. I was telling Annie yesterday that it would be cool to start a Curt The Carrier Facebook page for my community. I could communicate with customers and get feedback on their mail delivery services. They could tell me where to leave their packages, etc. I had a customer private message me recently to tell me that she wants her packages left by her garage for example. I like it when people give me feedback. In the end we're a service and I'm not guessing. I would also communicate what it's like to deliver Amazon packages. When Amazon delivery started in the Post Office it changed the game. The standard mailbox, in my opinion, should have been banned. That might seem harsh or extreme. But the amount of packages we started delivering went up 5 times. So any package that might fit in the standard mailbox we would desperately try to make fit to save time. A big mailbox or container at the end of the driveway can be a godsend sometimes. On the other hand, I just delivered a route without Amazon delivery for a year and half. When I had a package that was questionable to fit in the mailbox I usually took it in. I had the space to do it and gave me a chance to get out of the vehicle. Small things that would make life easier for everybody with a little communication. Well, that's what I got running through my mind this morning. I hope you have a great day! Fire #108 1.20.25

"Bitcoin is insurance against politicians." ~ Naval Ravikant