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5:14 AM, Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023:   Ya know, I really don't know where I get this. Or why it has not only continued, but gotten stronger? Oooh I know! I'm straight up privileged now. I have the time to not document at lightening speed. I can spend this entire month making great Journey entries that no one will see if I'd like. I can take a day that happened last week that would normally just be rolled over and say "Ya know, we'll wish there was a video produced about this day in the future..." and just take a day and make it. It doesn't need views, it doesn't need income it just needed to be done so my brain can let it go.   I have the privilege to think like a starving artist. Goddamn I am one lucky motherfucker. Here's the shit that wouldn't fit in 2022:     Man, good on Vienna for knockin' that out with humor. Shit, that may have made this a more "eureka" moment than I previously realized. She's infamously anxious of nearly everything new... she was legit scared as fuck of that hot-air balloon and not only faced it? She had the self-awareness to be funny about during the video...   ...sounds like a performer to me.   Hmm.   Anyway - kick-ass day with relatives and I'm pretty sure I mentioned it last summer but Talya's aunt and wife are a fuckin' riot and I adore spending time with them. And yeah, the Safari Park. I guess I should say a few words. (sigh).   As I said to Talya that day: "at least we know 17 animals in captivity are livin' it up." Obviously it's more than 17 and there are other places doing right by the animals but, ugh, it always comes down to this: evolution is ugly. Trying to control it, or bring back animals that went extinct, or picking up animals from Africa and moving them here to be "safe"... it all screams "I DON'T LIKE NOT HAVING CONTROL." Species will go extinct, new ones will take their place. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Forever. It will never seem right to me to pick them up out of their habitat and move them to a place and charge people money to see them. Ever. Yes, San Diego (and other places) do it better than most. Especially this Safari Park portion of the zoo. But it still begs the question "why?!?!" to me. To make money? Or as they always put it: "to conserve the species"? During the tour the guide mentioned they were bringing back the white rhino a la Jurrassic park and while it's great that we have the ability to do this... what's the goddamn point? Take a picture of the last one, have a drink, and move the fuck on. There's literal dying fuckers in the streets right now. It feel like just ignoring real problems and MAKING UP new ones. What exactly does the color of the skin of a goddamned rhino have to do with anything? What would we miss if we could only see a different SHADE of a fucking animal.   HOW FAR DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE must you go until you realize: this doesn't matter. We're all part of the circle of life, there's an ebb and flow. Shit, even asshole poachers or people rippin' up the land is kind of part of the process. Mother earth will shed us all eventually and new species will replace us. This constant need to artificially sustain the unsustainable feels like virtue signalling to me. It's what I liked so much about the safari in 2009: we were the caged fuckers in THEIR land. They knew it too. It was cool to dip your toe in, take some video and then get the fuck out. The idea you would capture them, bring them to a completely different climate and then be like "we saved you!". Fuck, we do the same thing with their human babies too. Look, we saved this baby from an environment that WE don't think is right.   Huh? It just seems out of order in my brain. But I still went and supported it I guess. <shrugs> I'm not exactly standing up for my beliefs here. Especially considering I have waxed poetic about this shit in the sea world entries too. It's tough with kids. Vienna is animal CRAZY. I don't want her to miss out on these opportunities... but I just feel like it can be done with videos. Planet Earth., David Attenborough... and call it a day.   Anyway, writing all this while actively going makes me seem pretentious. Oh well, fuck me. Can't avoid that.   Adam