Post-Pandemic Plans

Build a house, feed my family, get the hell off screens

Beginnings at the Ground Zero Garden (photo by Paul Greenberg)

There are resolutions and then there are plans. The empty middle between these two extremes has been my curse over the course of these pandemic years.

But no more. I am finally paring away the hazy hoped-for from the concrete-realizable. It’s these real things that will be the focus of my writing here as I re-boot my Medium work for 2022.

It’s not that I did nothing from the moment I stepped off my last flight in February of 2020 until now. I did get COVID and recover (the alpha variant, thank you very much). I did publish a couple of short books — one on quitting my smartphone, the other on shrinking my carbon footprint. I maintained a terrace garden down here at Ground Zero in Manhattan. And I homed in on the kind of diet that works best for me for cardiovascular health and weight loss.

You may still feel young and healthy. But how many years of actual productivity remain? Can you really afford to leave any more of those years unplanned?

But it all felt kind of, I dunno, divided and aimless. Yes, yes, it’s all pointless in the end, but more and more I’ve found that when I have a clear set of goals and stick to those goals I am happier day-by-day. There’s also this very salient point: Even though you may still feel young and healthy how many years of actual productivity do you have left? Can you really afford to leave any more of those years unplanned?

I’m certain I cannot. So I’m just going to put it out there what I’m going to try to do and invite you to join me in the journey. I realize I may very well fail. But just writing down what I want to accomplish and making it public feels like a line in the sand. Dear Reader, I beg of you, help me not to backslide. Here then, is what I’m looking to do in ‘22.

1. Build a Sustainable House. Ok, ok, maybe not the entire house. But I did buy an acre of land in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York State in 2020. It has water and electricity hook ups. Building permits are not a problem. I have feelers out to builders, micro-home enthusiasts, and alternative power developers. I have time. I have my…