Dumber

I left Facebook back in 2011 already realizing that things were going to get much worse. 

There was something disquieting about the barrage of pablum and the obvious grandstanding by some people who wanted to advertise how well their lives were going. 

The concept of keeping up with friends was slowly turning into over sharing and insipid content which wasn't in any way enlightening. Not long after were at the start of the conspiracy theories and toxic attacks which reversed what was supposed to originally have been fruitful and constructive dialogue. 

Now even LinkedIn is a cesspool of self-aggrandizing and back slapping. 

Social media has helped strengthen the divide between people and emboldened the anonymous to poison the well of discourse. We attack what we don't like without hesitation because there are few consequences. It's a cheap and temporary elevation of self esteem at the expense of someone we consider weaker. 

I don't suspect that Mark Zuckerberg and company thought through the full spectrum of human behaviour when they unleashed this phenomenon on the world; one which is making all of us decidedly dumber.

Too much information isn't always a good thing.

Zero sum game

MAGA is a zero sum cult. It's about needing to win at something when everything else isn't working anymore. It's about owning the libs, stopping "wokeism" or whatever else the right wing echo sphere tells them. 

It's about grievance. 

For just a few minutes these people need to feel superior to someone else because they have an axe to grind with how their life quality has declined over the years. 

Trump gave them their walking papers and permission to be cruel and dismissive along with the promise they nothing bad would happen to them. They want to see others suffer for a change while they are spared. 

It's easy to call these people stupid and some of them are. But mostly they are ignorant and incurious enough to fall for a snake oil salesman who tells them he will fix their misery. 

They aren't policy wonks but instead just want to be able to pay their bills and stop feeling like they are always falling behind. 

The American dream is gone for most of them and now the best hope is to hold down a steady income and staying healthy so they don't need to declare bankruptcy after being unable to pay their medical bills.

Just wait till they find out it was all a scam.

Stiff upper lip

There's an old joke about the patient going to the doctor and lamenting "Doc it hurts when I do that" only to hear the doctor reply "then don't do that" 

It reminds me of the simplistic messaging that some people are prone to give thinking it will help us. They don't understand someone else and use pop psychology to reduce the problem to "just get over it" 

Most people don't comprehend what others go through and so they rely on a stiff upper lip suggestion that may have worked for them on some other issue. They don't intrinsically comprehend and so offer simplistic advice instead of a friendly ear and some empathy. 

People mean well I suppose. 

Perhaps because I am a very complicated person I don't appreciate reductive advice based on a presumption of understanding the problem. I prefer that if you can't relate, you just offer to earnestly listen. 

The world doesn't operate on nuance but prefers to offer buzzwords and slogans so people can move on. You get an email from HR with suggestions on reducing stress while at the same time the company culture encourages it with its frantic chaos.

"There, there" they tell you "we understand. Just breathe deeply".

Nothing wrong with that

When I was in my twenties in the 1980's, life was on more of a preset pattern. The post war social order was very much in place and we didn't ask as many questions about what to do. 

The presumption was that you would follow the tried and true model of your parents. You would finish school, get married and have kids. Society was set up to follow a template that most people could adopt even if the results ultimately varied. 

These rules weren't just about what to do but also about who you could be. 

Fast forward to today and my children at the same age I was then, have no such template. They ask themselves questions regarding their future and see no definitive path to follow because each option has so much more uncertainty. 

There is both good and bad here because while not having a mold adds confusion, it also liberates you from the societal pressure to conform. People are less prone to ask you why you aren't following the rules. 

Today, we are reimagining what the new social order will be and I think it will favor people with more tolerance for uncertainty and able to be more uniquely themselves. They are more apt to find their authenticity outside the sheep's pen. 

Nothing wrong with that.

Need versus want

How do we separate need from want? It may not be as obvious as we might think. We can also frame the question as choice versus no choice. 

We need to sleep, eat and drink water to survive but after that it becomes a descending order of priority to figure out. 

"I need to be rich" sounds more like a type of pathology than a need and we can imagine a whole host of other assertions that should make us reflect. The reason this is important is that need often gets us to a place of balance and harmony whereas want doesn't always improve our situation. 

Need versus want blurs itself in our lives often impacted by what society considers imperatives. In the past we might fret about why we aren't yet married only to discover years later that we weren't suited for it. 

A determined need became a want which ended up ultimately rejected. 

It's important to make a distinction between the essential and the elective because life comes with inherent risks. Every decision we make has consequences which is why are better off judiciously considering what outcomes we truly cannot live without versus what we think we cannot live without. 

Over time, life will teach us the distinction when we aren't sure and not always kindly.

Waiting for Godot

There is only one universal truth and humans aren't privy to it. 

Religions try to formulate ideas based on bits and pieces and sell comfort to quell what Soren Kierkegaard called existential angst. If they had found the truth there would only be one religion instead of hundreds. 

People want certainty and faith provides a doorway that they can peek into. The more the greys perturb, the more orthodoxy they crave. 

We don't know why we are here or what our exact purpose is but in the meantime we busy ourselves with temporary pursuits. Some of them lead nowhere whereas others might point us towards elevating our consciousness and attaining some form of higher meaning. 

There is a common thread in all of us which is independent of race, creed, gender or orientation which becomes foundational in all religions that seek truth. 

Even if we don't attain truth fully through any sect of faith, at least we congregate together for warmth and support while we wait for the answer.

Hypocrites

Apparently, Kristi Noem's husband likes to wear huge fake breasts and pink hot pants while he chats online with fetish models. The hypocrisy of these people knows no bounds as they keep getting caught in scandals. 

This kind of behaviour falls into the kink category and I saw someone earnestly ask on a YouTube channel if this person fits under the LGBTQ category.

Before I waded in, I saw two measured and intelligent responses. One from a gay man and another from someone who calls themselves gender fluid who both clarified things for the person asking.

Noem's husband is being termed a "crossdresser" in the media reports I have seen, but I know all too well most of them would disown him. 

There is perhaps secretive authenticity happening here but certainly no identity issue to speak of and what makes this all so objectionable is that right wingers are so vocal about the types of things they do themselves in secret. In other words, they are massive hypocrites.

Who knew?

Whenever there is a large gathering of right wingers in one place such as a convention I have read that Grindr spikes as a consequence.

Somehow, I am not all that surprised.

Hate is expensive

MAGA is fracturing at all levels; the entire American political right is, especially those who hitched their wagons to Trumpism with the most gusto. 

The infighting among the pundits is almost delicious as the factions (pro and anti Israel, etc.) start complaining about what derailed their movement to bring America back to some mythical past where everything felt safer for them. 

Even Ben Shapiro's right wing faux intelligentsia movement "The Daily Wire" is going bankrupt; one of its stalwart soldiers in Jordan Peterson also dealing with his numerous mental and physical health issues. 

It turns out that hate and stupidity are expensive. 

The unnecessary US excursion into Iran will prove extremely costly as even an immediate opening of the strait of Hormuz won't instantly bring the high prices hurtling back down. The urea needed for fertilizer production which was also blocked from passing will result in consequences for growers down the line. 50% of the world supply passes through there meaning everyone will feel some pain. 

Trump, ever the reliable idiot, will back down but the damage won't be easily or quickly repaired. Those who could least afford price hikes and disruptions will as usual suffer the most harm. 

Hate is indeed expensive.

Many are preparing their apology speeches now hoping they might work. But I wouldn't bet on it.

The Epstein class

Western supremacy and specifically American supremacy is over. After 250 years, the American experiment has run its course dying on the hill of late stage capitalism and a staggering wealth inequality never before seen in its history. 

Empires decline slowly over many decades and after Reagan's election in 1980 (I was 18) the die was cast. Neoliberalism and its insistence that markets would regulate societal and inequality issues turned out to be a deadly error. Trickle down economics was also the lie sold to a public that didn't viscerally understand how greed in human beings works. 

Today the public struggles to pay for groceries, housing and many have abandoned the idea of paying for health care insurance that is beyond their reach. The 90% is struggling while the 10% ponders what color their third boat will be. 

There is no way back from this without radical surgery that would involve a massive mea culpa a radicalized GOP is unprepared to make. 

Taking money out of politics and reintroducing fair taxation will be a bitter but necessary pill to swallow under the current corrupt environment but there is no longer any choice. 

It's either that or complete societal collapse. 

The Epstein class had their champagne years and looted the treasury while the middle class was slowly being hollowed out. No amount of cultural strawmanning of immigrants and other visible minorities will save the sinking ship now. 

Trump isn't the core problem but instead a symptom of a much larger one. 

Time is up and the Nuremberg type trials should be in order.

The grain

With life experience comes knowledge and with that knowledge a certain fatigue and even cynicism. We see things coming a mile away because pattern recognition has become part of our arsenal. 

We encounter archetypes we know how to deal with much better and know if we need to avoid them. 

It's as if we want to conserve energy and save it for the best experiences knowing that the majority of our lives are behind us. It is here where wisdom serves its purpose. 

We no longer want to take on someone else's drama because we may have already done the hard work to get us to a balance point. No matter how imperfect it may be. 

We find small talk fatiguing and irrelevant because we want to get to some grain of relevant truth we have yet to discover about ourselves and our world before our time here is up.

Schopenhauer was right

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer thought it pointless to argue with stupid people. Instead he suggested that we observe them almost mechanically and with some amusement. We should allow them their logical fallacies and not become angry with them. 

I am working on this in the age of Trumpism where the full array of human idiocy is on display. 

Most people aren't malicious but instead combine ignorance with obtuseness and disinterest. They are unable to connect the dots that get them where they are in life and only later wake up when they have been impacted by the incoming train of calamity. Their lack of curiosity is their Achilles heel. 

It was gas prices that finally got to some of the cult members. The misogyny, the racism, the cruelty seemed to suit them just fine and I saw the evidence with callers of political phone-in shows where their dim-witted bravado was on full display. The Dunning-Kruger effect is very much alive and well. 

If I don't temper my disdain for the stupid I won't have a calm remainder of my life and so I work on taking the advice of Schopenhauer and add a pinch of empathy for good measure. 

The old world order is over and the next few years will be volatile and messy. So I better buckle in and take long deep breaths in the process.