The Covenant of Unanimous Consent

A New Covenant by L. Neil Smith

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED Witnesses to the Lesson of History -- that no Form of political Governance may be relied upon to secure the Individual Rights of Life, Liberty, or Property -- now therefore establish and provide certain fundamental Precepts measuring our Conduct toward one another, and toward others:

Individual Sovereignty

FIRST, that we shall henceforward recognize each individual to be the exclusive Proprietor of his or her own Existence and all of the products of that Existence, holding no Obligation binding among Individuals excepting those to which they voluntarily and explicitly consent;

Freedom from Coercion

SECOND, that under no Circumstances shall we acknowledge any Liberty to initiate force against another Person, and shall instead defend the inalienable Right of Individuals to resist Coercion employing whatever Means prove necessary in their Judgement;

Association and Secession

THIRD, that we shall hold inviolable those Relationships among Individuals which are totally voluntary, but conversely, any Relationship not thus mutually agreeable shall be considered empty and invalid;

Individuality of Rights

FOURTH, that we shall regard Rights to be neither collective nor additive in Character -- two individuals shall have no more Rights than one, nor shall two million nor two thousand million -- nor shall any Group possess Rights in Excess of those belonging to its individual members;

Equality of Liberty

FIFTH, that we shall maintain these Principles without Respect to any person's Race, Nationality, Gender, sexual Preference, Age, or System of Beliefs, and hold that any Entity or Association, however constituted, acting to contravene them by initiation of Farce -- or Threat of same -- shall have forfeited its Right to exist;

Supersedure

UPON UNANIMOUS CONSENT of the Members or Inhabitants of any Association or Territory, we further stipulate that this Agreement shall supercede all existing governmental Documents or Usages then pertinent, that such Constitutions, Charters, Acts, Laws, Statutes, Regulations, or Ordinances contradictory or destructive to the Ends which it expresses shall be null and void, and that this Covenant, being the Property of its Author and Signatories, shall not be Subject to Interpretation excepting insofar as it shall please them.

Signed by Evenstar on October 3, 2008.

Another Try at Remaking Myself

So, as happens so often, it's time for me to try to get my life back in order. It's something I've tried over and over again, but so far have been unsuccessful at making it "stick." But I'm trying again and we'll see if I can make it work this time.

Weight

I am obese. I am not happy with the way this makes me feel. I don't like the fact that everything takes so much effort. I don't like the fact that I don't have the endurance I ought to. So, I'm working on it. According to height/weight charts, I should be at about 130lbs. So, I'm setting that as a goal and am working on making it happen. I didn't get this extra weight overnight, so I don't expect to lose it overnight. I expect it will take a lot of time and attention. But I am going to make it happen!

Work

For reasons already mentioned in my "New Hampshire Dreaming" post, I need to find a way to make my work more profitable. I work from home doing legal transcription. This is both a good and bad job for me.

It's good, because I'm good at typing, I can set my own hours, I can stay home with Tre, I can make just about as much money as I want.

It's bad, because it uses 90 percent of my body and 10 percent of my brain. I find myself getting distracted constantly. Even worse, for some reason my body doesn't handle boredom well. When I get bored, I fall asleep. It doesn't matter how much sleep I've got. I don't have to be tired at all, in fact. If I'm bored, I fall asleep. So, I end up trying to balance a tightwire between boredom (falling asleep) and distraction while I try to work.

If only I could do something else while I was typing, something that used the parts of my body not used by the typing... but I have been unable, thus far to find that something. My typing requires one foot (to work the pedal which controls the start and stop of the audio), my ears (to hear the audio), my hands (to type what I hear), and my body (to be in front of my computer where this all happens). But I can (and have, in the past) do this work in my sleep.

Housework

I'm also, at the same time, trying to improve the standards of housework in our house. I have not been able to keep things up to the standard I would prefer in our house. I've been so overwhelmed with everything else that's going on, that I just haven't been doing good at anything. But enough is enough. We're going to be here for almost another year, and I've got to find a way to make this place livable for that duration.

From the moment we moved in here, it has always been meant to be a temporary situation. We never planned to stay here this long. So, in some ways, we've never really made it a home. Now we really have to do that. We can't (or at least I can't) continue living the way we've been living. So, add that to my list of things to work on.

Social

I have discovered over our years together that I have a much larger need for social interaction than my husband does. Unfortunately, this means that I tend to not get my need for social interaction met. It's up to me to fix that. I have people nearby that I could spend time with. I could save some money and visit the people I know who live further away. I could meet this need without my husband. But I've got to stop waiting for New Hampshire. Yes, I expect it will be easier there, because there are already social situations there that I could just "plug into" to a major extent. But similar situations exist here, I've just got to find them.

Summary

I've got a lot of work cut out for myself. And even if I accomplish all this, it will just be a beginning. I've got big plans for myself. It's time to stop living in the future and start making changes today. That way, when the future comes, I'll be ready to make the most of it!

Society for Creative Anachronism

I'll likely never get into the habit of posting/writing regularly. I've had this problem with all of my past attempts to document my life. Either nothing is going on, so I have time but nothing to write about, or everything is happening rapidly giving me lots to write about, but no time.

But that all aside, I recently (in the past two months or so) re-discovered the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). I had run into the group originally when I was a teen in Germany (dad was stationed there with the Army). I expressed interest. Mom, Dad, and I had one meeting with one person. After the meeting they took one look at me said, "You'll get obsessed. You can't do it." and that was that.

So, 10 years or so later, I finally started putting out feelers to my local SCA groups. I live almost exactly between two groups and I started doing things with the more active group. Everything has been off and running since then.

Okay, so maybe you don't know anything about the SCA. Let's start with the fact that it is more or less a medieval reenactment group and then work from there. It isn't TRULY reenactment. It's more of a way to explore various interests in the medieval time frame (600 to 1600) surrounded by others doing the same.

There is a wide variety of people in the SCA for a wide variety of reasons. Some are very particular about pursuing their interest in as historically accurate a way as possible. Others are merely there to socialize and make only the broadest of attempts at being historically accurate. And of course, there's everything in between these two mind sets.

If you attend major events, you are asked to make an attempt at period clothing (no blue jeans and polo shirts). But there are many local activities that are done in "street clothes" or "mundane clothes". Some people focus primarily on the combat (which is governed by many safety requirements) and others focus on garb (clothing from the period). Some focus on cooking, some on the bardic arts (poetry and singing), others on "arts and sciences" (metalworking or spinning or weaving or the like). The group allows a wide variety of interests to fall into the same basic interest (medieval life) and seems to be quite popular.

Also, you can participate in the SCA very inexpensively (if you mainly borrow or make items) or very expensively (if you buy or commission the manufacture of items). It can be time consuming (if you attend all the events of an active barony) or take virtually no time at all (if you attend only select events or participate with a fairly inactive shire).

Anyway, it's been an interesting diversion to get me, my husband, and my son hooked up in this group. We're still working on determining our level of participation and interests and such. But we're finding Marinus to be a very happy home away from home.