The next few posts are from the past. I wrote the rough draft in the spring of 2021. I jotted it in a notebook on a picnic table while camping. I never posted it; until now.
It’s less than a year later, the half fleshed out theories and incomplete paragraphs became a poignant reminder of the time before 2021 had officially become a shitshow. There was hope. In the ensuing months, we were mistreated. Now we’re being told (ordered!) to forget the events we personally experienced. Don’t forget. Remember.
In 2022, it’s obvious that things will go full circle. That was not yet known in 2021.
In a few months or years people who were (are!) working up the nerve to put me up against the wall will “fix” their version of events. Last year they were unhinged; without limits. They enjoyed being part of a mob. Moral superiority was their drug and they mainlined that shit. They had a grand time. They ran amok and sought to crush anyone who disagreed. Now comes the crash. From their point of view it’s all falling apart. Thankfully, their “final solution” hasn’t come to fruition. The “other” still exists. I still exist.
Folks who never lost their shit over Covid remain. We’re the wiser, more certain, more rooted, more adult side of the equation. We never went mad. We didn’t harm other people. We didn’t wreck the economy or ignore the rule of law or fuck up kid’s lives.
Also, we didn’t die. We’re alive because biological reality didn’t match the panic. I didn’t get on my knees and pray to Fauchi for salvation. I was never the mask wearing toy of some nitwit Governor. According to every media report for two years, I should be dead. I’m not. I’m fine. My very existence repudiates their mad power grab. Your existence does the same. Whatever Covid was or is; submission to an all-powerful government wasn’t necessary to live. Many of us knew the difference between a virus and a magic spell. We weren’t driven mad. They completely lost their damn minds!
Their overreach is a stain they’ll try to wash out. They’ll invent excuses and tell themselves it never happened. They never sought to do evil. That was someone else. They never bullied and harassed. That was someone else.
They’ll build a wall between what they did and what they remember. Their actions caused harm and sought to force submission. They will tell themselves it’s somehow excusable. Grandpa who lived in Berlin in the 1940’s was never a Nazi. The person that ratted out Anne Frank had a very good reason. Witches were messing up the crops. The Constitution is irrelevant old words. If you’re scared enough you’re allowed to do anything.
The Nuremberg trials established the concept of “crimes against humanity”. One cannot excuse certain atrocities by saying one was simply following orders. Watch how this plays out post-Covid panic. They’ll explain that Nuremberg doesn’t apply this time. It’s different because current atrocities came from people who were simply following orders. Got that?
They’ll try to change the memory of events because the alternative is hard. It takes strength of character to know you’ve done evil or acted like an asshole. To accept your mistakes and seek to be a better person you need morality, humility, and strength. If you had morality, humility, and strength you wouldn’t have spent the last few years freaking out. Given their weak nature, they’ll seek an easier way. Yet another “shortcut” that avoids personal reflection and growth. Whatever malicious thoughts and deeds they’ve indulged in, will reboot in their mind as moral and acceptable.
They’ll lamesplain their new reality from an internal monologue. What we just experienced isn’t the truth. It’s misinformation. If it did happen, it’s minor. What isn’t minor, is forgivable.
“We eliminated the rule of law but it was only temporary. It hasn’t yet been restored but we will restore it any day now. We banned you from travel, jobs, banking, medical care, stores, schools, public spaces, and expressing your opinion, but that’s just an unfortunate miscommunication. The problem is that you wouldn’t get with the program. Submission is how you get freedom. When we crushed spirits and the economy alike it was an accident. Anyway it was months ago. We bear no responsibility and don’t admit it happened. We haven’t changed or faced consequences. But we’re better now. It’s all good. Right?”
In early 2021. I thought the year was likely to suck but I still held hope about alternatives. Maybe hope was denial. The writing was already on the wall. Most of America had hunkered down into one of two opinions; “this is going to suck like a proctology exam inflicted by a jackhammer” and “now that Orange man is gone, we can do anything we want and we intend to steamroll everything and everybody”. The middle ground was already gone; scorched earth. I grasped for a third way; was that just delusion?
In 2022, I have the benefit of hindsight. There’s no doubt; 2021 went to shit exactly like I woried it would. You saw it coming too. It sucked for you too. We knew what was coming and there was no escape. We simply had to take the hit. Our evasions or adaptations were, at best, only partially successful. When half the populace goes mad, the sane suffer too.
It could have been worse but could it have been better? In retrospect I don’t think so. The second year of 2020 is/was/and always will be a time of madness, instability, decline, and self inflicted misery. I speak not just of America but dozens of nations.
Did I write my draft as a battered Curmudgeon who understood that society was so fucked that he’d unavoidably take damage? Was it the bargaining stage of a man who knew he must endure misfortune? By spring, in God’s season of renewal, I knew in my soul that disaster was already a done deal. My hollow and weakened society showed every intention to piss the electric fence… and it did.
Society didn’t have to piss on the fence; it wanted to.
Is that why I never cleaned it up and posted it? I don’t know. I didn’t (and don’t) intend to dwell on the negative. It may help to reflect that “this has happened before”. It may help to know that the natural world is just fine. Only society is a wreck. If society crawls up its own ass, nature doesn’t notice and individuals don’t have to follow. The chaos that plagues our time is of the imagination. It festers in the minds of people who are panicked and stampeding but also quivering with the ecstasy of seized power. They were attracted to, and deeply enjoyed, their time in the sun. They inflicted sadistic punishments and loved every minute of it. Some profited from the mess. Others used it as a distraction from their boredom. Losers with failed little lives that set fire to the own world so they can feel some sense of excitement. Regardless, it’s all in the mind. The year of serial disasters wasn’t caused by a virus. It demonstrated a problem that already existed in the most fallen of humanity.
If you didn’t have TV and social media, you’d hardly know a thing called Covid exists. The Amish understood this was a problem of the mind and spirit. They bravely handled it head on. They passed through and beyond the “threat” in a matter of months. Manhattan laptop warriors lack the balls to follow the path strode proudly by simple farmers. Elites still writhe in a mix of vaccine passports and police oppression. They still hang on the words of Fauchi as if he’s got a track record of success. They chatter about whichever Cuomo is or isn’t fired. They crawled into a media cage and locked the door to keep themselves in. People who’ve always had the right to stay at home or wear a mask still beg the government to force it on them. “I can do this any time but I want you to force me.”
The Amish overcame in a fortnight that which has D.C., Vienna, Canberra, and Ottawa tied in knots. They are the sane ones. It is the 144th week of two weeks to flatten the curve. You don’t jail yourself for 3 years because you’re of sound mind.
I lack the Amish support network but I followed their path. You probably did too. I mourn those left behind. There are children wearing masks in third grade. Australia built concentration camps. The economy is a crater. I could not save them. I went camping.
By now only the most deluded think this is about a virus. We all know it’s caused by weak souls. Even the possessors of weak souls know it. Fearful Karens see demons. Hell comes to them from Facebook. Evil looks back from their own reflection.
I have never feared a witch. But in 2021 I saw witch burners destroy the innocent.
Here’s a ray of hope. All is not lost because stupidity is a human construct. The natural world is as it always was. Butterflies are still beautiful. The cycle of life was never interrupted. Summer cut firewood warms my toes in winter. I fish and sail on lakes that were crystalline in a previous season. Everything real is as amazing as ever. A gaggle of monkeys driven batty by aging demographics and social media is a rounding error to the Universe. Life is glorious.
The stars at night are there for anyone who chooses to turn off the TV and look. Most folks are terrified of the gorgeous night sky. Why fear the stars? Would they see God? Would they see what’s in their heart?
I reflect on these things to no clear conclusion. Collective self destruction eludes my understanding because I won’t participate. I can’t savor the emotional rush of joining a mob. I don’t want to burn a witch. I’ll never put a human in a cattle car. I refuse to forfeit my will. I will never do evil in the service of others. I will never have to stand before God or man and plead “I was simply following orders”.
The thing I wrote had positive options. But it was a path not taken.
I provide this and the following posts to you, that you might have some memory of what it was like 2021… before (in the political realm at least) it played out as a complete utter total clusterfuck.
I hope you like it.
