May 4, 2025

Living in Wyoming during these tumultuous times feels oddly surreal. While national tensions rise and economic concerns loom, daily life here continues with surprising normalcy. It is as if this is a separate reality.

This state offers breathtaking natural beauty largely untouched by development. I regularly encounter deer, antelope, raptors, and various smaller wildlife, with an occasional sighting of moose and bears. The accessibility of hiking and kayaking just a few miles from my home is an added bonus.

When I first arrived, I appreciated the "live and let live" philosophy embraced by longtime residents. However, this mindset seems to be evolving in recent years due to an increasingly polarized online information landscape.

Wyoming's political landscape is interesting given its small population. In 2024, only 454,508 people were eligible to vote. Primary election turnout reached approximately 125,000, while general election participation increased to about 275,000. These participation rates align with national trends, yet the state's political makeup could theoretically shift with a relatively modest influx of 100,000 new residents from more progressive states.

Many people blame non-voters for political problems, but my time with Wyoming residents who don't vote suggests a more complex reality. Their disengagement often stems from feeling abandoned by a political system that has consistently overlooked rural Americans, the economically disadvantaged, and those struggling to make ends meet.

Voting itself presents logistical challenges that many take for granted. Those who can easily take time off work or who own reliable transportation have advantages in participating. Even during Democratic administrations, hardworking individuals determined to improve their circumstances have faced systemic barriers that make upward mobility difficult despite their best efforts. You can argue that they should know that this current administration will only make their lives harder, but they are too busy just trying to survive to care.

Recent protests have been small but significant, with demonstrators outnumbering counter-protesters. This creates an interesting dynamic in America's least populated state, where the rugged beauty conflicts with increasingly complex political realities.

Anyway, back to making it through another day.

May the 4th be with you.

I am starting this log at 23:40 and I am going to write until midnight.

This past week, I find myself dwelling on things in the past, mostly friends I used to have. I feel like there's so many meaningful moments that I've had with these people, and it's so strange because these memories, the emotions associated with them feel vast and powerful and absolute. But I don't know them anymore, probably never will again. It's just so strange to me. People I met in highschool. People I met in college. People I met at church. People I met in video games. All these people, they have the same memories with me as I do with them, but they're living their lives, they have friends, maybe spouses and homes, their own opinions, their own heartbreaks, and I'll never know anything about them ever again. I just wonder, do they ever feel sad about it like I do? Do they ever think about me, every however many weeks or months? Does anything remind them of me? Do they wish they told me things, or wish they didn't tell me things?

I also find myself thinking about the person I wanted to marry. We were so young. Does she hate me? Does she miss me? I feel like I never completely got over it, now it's been all these years and I still feel the emotions. How do I get to the point where I feel nothing about it anymore? Gosh, it's been seven years. I don't even think about anything we did, or anything we said to each other. I just see her in my mind as some sort of platonic form. I think about what I would say if she texted me, how I would phrase it. It's fine though. I'll get over it. Just give it time. That's what I'm telling myself.

I've been playing a lot of Minecraft these past couple of weeks. I joined a server. It's weird, I think I've made some kind of impression -- someone logged onto the server today and the only person they greeted was me. It makes me wonder if I'll make any actual friends doing this, or if it will just be a kind of a thing in which we're both playing the game at the same time and are friendly toward each other. I still have no idea what I want to do on the server, I've been building up decorations, gathering resources, getting gear, but I don't know what I want the project to become. Am I going to build a temple? A village? A fortress?

Midnight is in three minutes.

I bought four copies of Ovid's Metamorphoses tonight on Ebay. Three of them were under $5. One of them is the original latin, and the other three are translations that are different from the Charles Martin translation, which I currently have. So I will have five copies of this text. I think I might try to start a collection, have a shelf dedicated solely to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Something about these myths appeals to a part of my psyche in a way that I cannot fully describe. Throughout the text people cry out to gods in immense desperation and anguish only to have their prayers answered capriciously and irrevocably. I don't know why it appeals to me. It just does.

It's 00:00. Goodnight e2.