It’s hard being a normal person. It feels like you’re the last one. Social media bombards you with visions of a society crawling up it’s own ass. Your kid’s teacher looks like a circus freak. Your neighbors fight among themselves over trivial matters. Your civic leaders are unlikable douchebags.
Former beacons of excellence are filled with rot. Universities no longer educate; they train human irritants who grind the workplace to a halt. Boeing strands people in space and Disney hasn’t made a good movie in years. The nation that produced Sinatra has topped out at Taylor Swift. Systems suffer self inflicted damage; Harley Davidson decided to Bud Light itself, the national debt is zooming toward Zimbabwe, and nobody knows how long the woke Navy will keep their boats floating.
You don’t want to be the last real, actual, normal, well adjusted, semi-coherent, vaguely self-reliant human left in a sea of dithering mediocrity do you?
Hell yeah you do!
Spit that fuckin’ black pill right out! We’ve all been mistreated but we have free will. Use it! If everyone else is demoralized, that’s not your problem. Rise above and, if necessary, walk away. Be happy.
It’s a function of our times. We’re enduring the first few decades of a vast experiment in human mind control. Gutenberg’s press upended nations, peoples, and whole social orders. Wars were fought. Lives were altered. Yet some people, the wise and the lucky, rode the wave. They thrived, or at least persevered.
Gutenberg’s press was a speed bump compared to what we face today. Since the 1950’s, mass media bludgeoned us with bullshit. TV did us no good but at least the intellectual sinkhole was chained down in a single room. By the turn of the century, mass media was refined into social media. Now it has crawled into your pocket. You pay monthly fees to “enjoy” a mental parasite carried on your person.
You know I’m right. You can feel it yourself. Your mind has been drilled, probed, tweaked, explored, manipulated, and addicted. You’re told all sentient beings have a certain set of beliefs but none of these spring organically from interaction with the natural world. The more outlandish the belief the better. Your doctor can’t define “woman”? Is that what you need in an oncologist? Would you hire a mechanic that can’t identify “exhaust manifold”.
Humans, which start as herd animals with occasional notions of greatness, have devolved. Now they’re frantic gaggles of self-destructive spastics. Groups form for no other reason than to signal their adherence to whatever shit they’ve been programmed to accept. Then, lacking depth, they dissolve. Societies and nations spanning centuries are pecked to death by barely sentient fools. Our world is pried apart by phone toting semi-evolved apes seeking a dopamine hit they’ll forget in an hour.
If the world is mad, why do you wish to bathe in it? Let that shit go!
Even if everyone marches straight into hell, the main thing you need to do is… NOT. Don’t pin your hopes on external forces. If the grid goes down. If free speech is terminated. If the masses give up on fair elections, proper governance, or even the possibility of objective truth, that doesn’t have to be you. Don’t be of the masses. If nearly everyone winds up beaten and broke; sitting in their leased EV and eating bugs while the “news” explains we have always been at war with Eastasia… that’s them, not you. Shrug it off. Hold on to hope. Build yourself.
Society has gone to shit before. Each time, some measure of the populace have elected for a better path and persisted. If you can find no other reason, stay sane just to spite the bastards!
What you need is an adventure. Actually I don’t know what you need. I’ll backtrack and say that’s what I needed.
Maybe you need a puppy, or a good book, or a stiff belt of bourbon, or to see a rainbow, or a sunrise, or just an “attitude adjustment” upside the head. Notice the commonality of the things I listed? None come from political or social forces! Books, puppies, sunrises, and a good dope slap are all available regardless of the malaise of the times. Whatever you need, go get it. As my grandma once said “it’s good for what ails ya’”.
My obscure blog posits adventure is the soul of man. It’s not pointless, it’s why. We are not beasts of burden, born to serve. We are not economic units on a Marxist’s game board. We are more.
Taking the time to ponder such things is good for you. You are always capable of using free will in pursuit of better. If you’re not, that’s on you. Sitting on the couch wishing someone else would fix shit, dithering until you’re hauled off on a stretcher, that’s nobody’s problem but yours; and it means you played your cards (whatever they were) poorly.
Wow. I guess I had to rant. Grandma probably would have said it was good for me to get it off my chest.
I’ll try again with more focus in my next post. Stay tuned.
Welcome back ! A good reminder that the quickest way for change to happen is changing yourself to become an optimist and rebuke Evil forced on each one of us. It doesn’t have to be mean or viscous, just a decision that you will not participate in making things worse. And a quiet day in the woods with nothing to do but contemplate your spot in the present is a great way to start. Priorities.
Rant away. It’s your blog and (IMHO) one of the problems of society is that people are afraid of saying anything that contradicts mainstream media, what the schools teach and “The Powers That Be”.
As Havelock Vetinari in Terry ratchet’s novel, “The Truth” put it:
“‘In return, however,’ said the Patrician, ‘I must ask you not to upset Commander Vimes.’ He gave a little cough. ‘More than necessary.’
‘I’m sure we can pull together, sir.’
‘Oh, I do hope not, I really do hope not. Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.’
He smiled. ‘It’s the only way to make progress.’ ”
Phil B
Fabulous Rant! Spot on and we’ll phrased. Thanks!