This morning I had a huge breakfast but knew I wanted to go swimming. I remember being told over and over again that I should wait 45 minutes to an hour or I would get a bad cramp and drown. All these years I would wait after eating before I swam. This time, I jumped right in the pool and started swimming. I swam 500 yards without any issues. I continued my workout for an additional 700 yards of intervals. To my surprise, I did not cramp and drown. When I returned to my RV, I did a little research on this belief. I found that there isn’t any proof that swimming immediately after eating causes cramps and more importantly doesn’t causes a cramp that would cause me to drown

  I’m going to write a series of blogs associated with theories and research about the mind. I urge you to do your own research because it is very important now more then ever. Just look at what is happening in America today. So let’s dig in with our “belief” system. The problem with most people isn’t so much their ignorance as knowing so many things that ain’t so.
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  It’s really easy to question something like going swimming after eating but imagine trying to question a strong belief, something passed down by someone you trust, a parent, mentor, friend, family, group, etc. Beliefs shape the way we think and act. It is important that we accept that some, perhaps most, of our beliefs may be wrong. Another important thing to keep in mind is that your beliefs may have no relationship with/to reality.

  A belief is assuming something to be true. All beliefs are created by choice. Many times it is void of facts. A belief about a things existence is not the same as its existence. I believe that water is blue and in reality water is clear. Once your belief met reality you would start saying, “Water is clear”. There is no reason for you to believe. just state the fact. You can dig deeper into what is a “fact” and find that facts can be influenced by beliefs. You will see how this can make an infinite circle of discussion. I will discuss that in another blog.

 Mankind has been studying the human mind for hundreds of years. We are still a long way from understanding how we think. Most of our reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do. Historians can look back right now and see that many of the our popular beliefs are in most ways the same as centuries past, organized and collective nonsense.
  There was a line in “Men in Black” where Agent K said it best, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everyone knew the Earth was the center of the Universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what we will know tomorrow.”
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 It’s hard for me to say at this point that beliefs are okay because many of us hang onto the unreasonable ones. We result to the many defense mechanisms when confronted with the challenge of those strong beliefs and how they have no relationship to reality.  This means that many of the most treasured beliefs may need to be discarded. I see belief as a disease and just like any health problem, it requires diagnosis.  The question is how do we collectively cure this disease.

edited by Vonda Smith

Safety!!!
   I will just tell you what everyone else is saying. The fifth wheel is more stable than a tow behind. There are a ton of reasons why out there. Personally, I pulled all kinds of trailers when I raced motorcycles and I never had a problem with stability. Trailers are well built now with stabilizers, etc. Hell, back when I had an 8x10 trailer without the stabilizers, I would pull it at 85 mph in a Escalade with no problem. Please do NOT try that! I’m stupid. Besides, I can drive like nobody’s business.

It’s a Truck with Limited Space
   If you decide to go with a fifth wheel, I will only caution you on knowing how many people will travel with you. IMO, you can only seat four people comfortably in the truck towing your fifth wheel RV. Sure, you can seat five but why? For more than four people, I would suggest an A Class and tow a cheap little pickup truck.

Diesel – PERIOD
   Gas is expensive. I wish I would have bought a diesel truck a long time ago. I had a Hummer and a Lifted Denali truck that would not pass a gas station at 9 miles to the gallon. I can average 10 miles to the gallon pulling an 18k house (depending on the terrain) with a diesel truck. You can’t go wrong with diesel. I’m sure the future will be bio-diesel go green).

Conclusion
    There are so many great options. Sure, anyone could tell you what to buy, but why? Make your list and go buy something. Worst case scenario is if you are wrong, you can sell it and buy something else. I will write a blog, "How to act without knowing the outcome" soon.  For a fee, you can come stay with me. 

 Maybe this helped someone. I look forward to your comments, questions, and personal stories about your fifth-wheel experiences. 
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   Look, I don’t mind living on peanut butter and jelly if I can keep writing but if you are feeling generous click “Donate” to leave a tip. Think of it as investing in the book I’m writing.
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edited by Vonda Smith

     Someone forwarded me a video that spoke about trust. I was compelled by their description. It closely describes how I feel every time I pull into an RV park. I’ve tried so many times to write this blog but never could pin down the right words. Even now as I write this, I know that it won’t make sense to many of you. At this point, I can’t imagine a time when we will ever be able to share a simple life experience with understanding. A moment when I can express with clarity a feeling of an experience and within that one experience, be able to walk you through my life to explain why I perceive that experience the way that I did. Yes, I know that sounds confusing. 

  Take a little time to ponder this before continuing to read, “A writer doesn’t know what he/she has written until it is read by someone else.”

   A black person asked me recently, “What it is like to be Black and travel across America in an RV and are you scared?” 
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   You may ask why I chose to say it was a “black” person that asked the question.  It was only because of the last part of the question which seems to be a continuing question from my black friends, “are you scared”.
 
   Being Black while traveling is the tightening of muscles anticipating anything; constantly aware, expending a lot of energy analyzing minute details of the surroundings, watching for signs, trying to interpret body language, reading signals, to be ready to react to anything, and preparing for possible disappointment and the need to leave at a moment’s notice.

   It is only being able to relax after a warm greeting of hospitality. It is how the body can stand solid on the renewed feeling of acceptance, generosity, and warmth. It is something that should be natural but is oftentimes overshadowed by the constant negativity ever present in the world.

    As the day turns to night the darkness hovers over you like a cloud of uncertainty. How stories are written and told present themselves with a constant narrative that hate lashes out mostly in the dark of night. Fear is merely the product of the unknown or more importantly the possibility - the possibility of indifference, of falsely negative twisted perceptions, and hate for no other reason than the color of skin. 

  Cognitive scientists try to understand not just what the mind does, but how it does what it does, and how past experiences are a key developmental aspect of how we will perceive the world around us. How experiences create both unconscious and conscious survival reactions during the process of adaption.  It is such a heavy and unnecessary burden to bear just to enjoy nature. Good and bad people exist everywhere.

   Learning to let go of fear affords a luxury not having to think so much or worrying about if danger exists before anything occurs. Constantly relearning how to relax and only focus on what is in the present.

Once again please ponder, “A writer doesn’t know what he/she has written until it is read by someone else.” 

Fear of living is the same as being dead. 

Thanks to Vonda Smith for edits.

  The robots continued to move at a seemingly predetermined pace. Everyone once in a while a   robot running late would push and bump its way through the other robots disrupting the assembly line. Faces would frown and gestures would be made but just as fast as the disruption occurred the line would go back to normal.
 
  I fade back to my thoughts... I couldn’t tell if I was like my mother or father. They were both scholars and educators by profession. Both of my sisters excelled in academics. I on the other hand, am not a product of this academic environment. I was happy with a C average.  Yet, I was nothing close to average because I was always into different shit. I always knew, without question, that there were, are and will be great and wondrous trials for me to overcome. The path I walked had curves where it was straight for others. I stood out even when I wanted to blend in.
 
  In all my years, I always found myself blessed with having beautiful people in my life no matter the length of time. Each one of them brought light to my dark place called life. Each step of the way, they helped me evolve, learn, and continue to understand there is no purpose. How each of us are bound by invisible chains, closed in by imaginary walls that are real to us.
 
   Yet, it occurred to me that no matter who was around or how many people I came in contact with, I remained a loner. I worked in silence most of the time, interacting with friends and having relationships mostly built on something fragile. To my own fault, most of them were seasonal. Just like then, I still find myself in solitude, at times a self-imposed exile that has become my way.
 
   If and when you see me doing things differently from the group, go ahead and judge me harshly. Its the installed program you accepted to despise the beauty of uniqueness. We have all accepted some form of the program that keeps us bumping into one another operating in a subset of conditions. Humanity has built and passed down year after year an environment that keeps us focus on distractions and sedated by false hope. We have all invested so much of ourselves in the idea of success trapped in a cycle of consumerism.
 
So much of our lives lost in the pointless search for purpose or meaning not allowing ourselves to just live.

   This is a quick video to show you some of the tasks I perform when I arrive at a new location.  

   It takes me and hour or so to get everything unpacked and situated. Please post any questions you  have about my setup. I look forward to hearing from you. 

Thanks