Hypocrites

Apparently, Kristi Noem's husband likes to wear huge fake breasts and pink hot pants while he chats online to 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 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.

I think I'll end things here

I think I'll end things here. 

For quite some time now, writing became a daily habit and not a need. In 2012, when I first dipped my toe into the public online sphere, it was essential that I wrote about a lifelong dilemma I didn't know how to adequately grapple with. 

Today, at 62, I understand myself and the world much better than I ever have but even then no life is perfect. The world I was born into in 1962 was a very different place and yet the core motivations of people have stayed exactly the same because those fundamental human yearnings never change. 

To become your authentic self you need to stop being constantly afraid and carefully examine what holds you back and why. You need to question ideas about yourself that you accepted as gospel truth and allow for a forging of new paths which eschew complacency. 

Saying "this is just the way my life is" is not going to help us grow nor is sticking with the herd because we are afraid of being singled out. We don't mature fully while cowering in fear. Taking your own path is certainly not the easiest thing to do but it is ultimately always the most fulfilling.

Something I should have learned much sooner in life regarding people accepting your personal identity is this: good people who truly matter shouldn't care and those who do care don't matter. Also, I have regrettably learned in spades that the fundamental difference between human genius and stupidity is that only genius has its limitations.

Live your life and do so as honestly as possible.

Goals

Everyone wants to be both understood and loved for who they are; not necessarily warts and all. 

I spoke to my son today and he read me a passage from his personal journal which impressed me as it was so well written. It was the same type of angst many of us have when we don't feel we quite fit in and want to get to a better place. 

Whether we are autistic or gender dysphoric or have some other aspect of ourselves that requires effort, we all have the same basic goals underneath it all. 

We want to truly live instead of just exist.

I'm not buying

I'm too old to get fooled. 

The host of the Metaphor of Gender Channel is a Blanchard disciple and critical who is trying to remake her image by painting a softer and kinder version of her ideas. 

Fortunately I did my homework and saw her appearances on toxic channels where the same old poison was being peddled. 

Where I agree with her is that not everyone should or needs to medically transition and that much thought needs to be put into this type of decision. Where we disagree is in painting transgender people as creatures of dysfunction who need to be saved from themselves. 

Which is to say, that doesn't mean that no one should transition. 

Gender critical philosophy is about transgender people as predatory inconvenience to society and the place of women being usurped (they have less trouble with transgender men of course). Helen Joyce is the archetypal critical. 

Thankfully the traffic to the channel is tiny and she isn't going to gain many converts. However if she does manage to convince some youth to think carefully before leaping then I suppose that's something.

The work never stops

Living life successfully is a learned experience. It doesn't come automatically because so much of what we are exposed to is unnecessary drivel except we do not know it at the time. 

We eventually learn to recognize what feeds into our essence and well-being and what detracts from it but often through harsh lessons which aren't wasted if we have emerged from them with deeper insight. 

Some people say they would like to go back to some part of their life and relive it with greater appreciation that they didn't possess at the time. I don't share that yearning but instead look back at my experiences as a road I needed to follow to get here which isn't perfection.

My father used to say that life begins at 40 and he was correct. By then you have developed some skills and some basic defenses which get you through the rest. 

The work never stopping until our time here is done.

How to respond to societal collapse

Morality is not a buffet

Touche....