You cannot reason with a demoralized person. But you can “meme them until they cry then make memes about them crying.” As a Russian defector, I am offended by your catsplaining ;)
I'll stick around, at least until the toxoplasmosis kicks in ... 😉🙂
But several points in your latest remind me of a famous quote from Hannah Arendt:
HA: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."
Somewhat moot whether there are more of those "reason-challenged" among the Democrats or the Republicans -- or among their so-called leaders and "champions".
"If you lose your ego, you lose the thread of that narrative you call your Self. Humans, however, can't live very long without some sense of a continuing story. Such stories go beyond the limited rational system (or the systematic rationality) with which you surround yourself; they are crucial keys to sharing time-experience with others.
Now a narrative is a story, not a logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whether you realize it or not. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming your story. And in these stories you wear two faces. You are simultaneously subject and object. You are a whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. "Storyteller" and at the same time "character". It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world.
Yet without a proper ego nobody can create a personal narrative, any more than you can drive a car without an engine, or cast a shadow without a real physical object. But once you've consigned your ego to someone else, where on earth do you go from there?
At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego.
Just what kind of narrative?
It needn't be anything particularly fancy, nothing complicated or refined. You don't need to have literary ambitions. In fact, the sketchier and simpler the better. Junk, a leftover rehash will do. Anyway, most people are tired of complex, multilayered scenarios-they are a potential letdown. It's precisely because people can't find any fixed point within their own multilayered schemes that they're tossing aside their own self-identity."
These days on the craziness of the world, I created a simple strategy. I create a short list of things I want to get done.
At the end of the day instead of beating myself up for nit getting more done. I have started congratulating myself for completing that small doable list. I let myself succeed.
I always tell my employees to accomplish 3 small things per day; 3 larger initiatives per month; and three projects in a quarter.
And to not get bogged down with a list of 184 things....because the list will always be there. It's really hard for younger employees to get that. They think they have to check off everything so that it goes away the next day....which it never does in reality.
Plus if you structure your days like this many items on a list take care if themselves by virtue of just trying to accomplish the bigger to-dos vs. managing by crisis.
I always told my employees "I don't pay you to sit on your ass". Didn't work out so well because they were software guys so, maybe I WAS paying them to sit on their asses.
Oh yes. Well thought out plan, Linda. I am the same.
back in the day I was a super multitasker - BAM I got a zillion things done.
I have changed of course, now, I DO make that list every day and then do the things
that more importantly make me "feel" I accomplished the necessaries over desires.
My oldest daughter just turned 40!! I suggested she just work on keeping the kids on their "rafts" and healthy, and do one necessary thing and one thing that you want to do.
Then you do not feel like a slave. Those days with kids in early school years were crazy.
Now I am older, I do more wants than needs haha haha
The "pull" advice at the end of this post is astute. As Ben Hunt puts it, when ingesting the media, we should always ask: "Why am I reading this, and why am I reading this NOW?" Everything "pushed" at us is driven by an agenda and a narrative. We need to understand both before consuming.
I missed the initial quotation marks and thought "Wow, that's extremely profound and insightful! Ryan is quite the philosopher." Then I get to the end.
"At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego."
This is the precise function of the corporate media. When interacting with my friends still inside the media bubble/matrix, it is clear to me that the effect of propaganda is to transfer the 'existential' fear that the regime (correctly!) feels about Trump on to them, to make them feel as if Trump is a direct and personal threat to themselves -- it becomes their identity.
Defending the narrative then becomes an act of self-defense; they feel personally threatened by those opposing viewpoints and this explains their complete inability to engage with, understand, or even view them.
That aside, someone went off on me about the first Trump assassin. They exploded with, "Next time, hire an adult with better shooting skills!"
I guess the "voice from the TV" where they get their news failed to tell them that the shooter was twenty years old, practiced shooting at a range where ATF practiced and was known as an excellent shot, and also had multiple cell phones and connected to overseas encrypted accounts.
What triggered this was a comment by me that it was amazing how the story disappeared from the media, unlike other assassinations of my lifetime: JFK, Wallace, MLK, Bobby, etc.
Dr. Natalia's post goes to the heart of how indoctrinated and twisted a significant segment of humanity have become. Kamekazi pilots out of "love" for humanity.
Emotional group-oriented people (and peoples) create a story about reality, which they then super-impose on reality, trying to force reality to become as the story say it is.
Pragmatic task-oriented people (and peoples) look at the reality at hand here and now, and then decide together how to act according to actual reality.
Most women are more group-oriented than most men. Most men are more pragmatic than most women. Most women are more emotional than most men, and most men are more fact-oriented than most women.
Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.
Thus, the optimal societal structure is a merit/proven ability/deed-based one, where duty to family and society comes before personal emotions or personal profit(eering), as evidenced by reality itself:
Compare and contrast Norway to Venezuela, or Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, or the USA pre-1960s to post-1990s.
Nah, that's been true throughout history - behind The Man you'll find a woman, or a group of women even (mother, wife, daughters, sisters and such) all influencing him in different ways to get their will manifested.
Octavian had his Livia, and she was no meek little "Handmaid's tale"-wannabe. There's basically not a general, dictator, high priest, whatever throughout history without a female confidante helping him along.
The problem for the feminists is, they always only go looking for "positive" examples, instead of actual reality: can't hold up Theodora of Byzantium without also holding up Erzsébet Báthory too, so to speak.
“ Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.” Tru dat. This dynamic is also responsible for the enshitification of lots of formally dependable institutions.
I love these narratives because they are completely without any consideration of the long history of humanity, which has been - almost without interruption - ruled by men with facts, and it has not been a primrose path of sweet paradise. Men with facts rule Afghanistan. Men with facts rule Iran. Men with facts rule North Korea. Men with facts ruled Nazi Germany. Men with facts gave us nazism, socialism and communism. Now more men with facts are saying women with emotion are to blame for the wide spread ills that plague mankind today.
As our formerly rational, competent, and productive society descends into estrogen and SSRI soaked madness, the best you can do is "but what about the Taliban"? Really?
Can you point to a single rational, competent, and productive society in history run by women? Just one? Because to me rule by men looks like a necessary precondition. All you are saying that rule by men alone is insufficient - a proposition which few would disagree with.
It would be hard to do as you've asked, as there really haven't been many instances where women have ruled. But if more female way of thinking and acting has taken over, who allowed it? Women vote in far larger numbers - why? You are correct that sane men must reclaim the narrative, but first they must stop shoving the blame on women and step back up. "She did it" isn't going to get anyone out of this mess.
I agree. So what have I done personally, and what do I advise others to do?
Vote, as you say, but also start saying "no". A lot.
I've done this at work against the constant race baiting these women are involved in (with the occasional - and I do mean occasional - cucked beta male).
I'm no longer involved in a church that recently hired a female pastor that does this insane shit (to the unnecessary detriment of my personal relationships, thanks pastor girlboss), I'm off social media entirely (substack does not count, IMO, because it can be anonymous, thus it doesn't drive social signaling as much), and I'll say things that make people uncomfortable when they bring these things up in person.
My approach is to tune it out online, but confront it pretty aggressively in person.
I think you may have answered your own question. There are no examples of a society where women have ruled, because women are terrible rulers, generally. Of course, life is a bell-curve, and you always have outliers, like Hatshepsut and Boudica, but the normal distribution of men vs. women, men make better rulers or leaders. Why is this? Nature. It's that simple, and part of the problem with modern society is that we have completely denied Nature. We think we can create our own reality where the laws of Nature do not apply because we are so smart nowadays. But you might as well try living at the bottom of the ocean. It will be about as successful.
Who allowed it? We allowed it. We thought we wanted weak men so we could be in charge. I mean that sounds so great. Kinda like the way they market terrible ideas to you when you are young, like Marxism. Weak men make bad times. And here we are.
True. All the fear mongering drives you nuts. I unsubscribed from several Substackers, because they are just as bad as the other side - media. I expected to see a comment from Yuri already and I did not get disappointed!
The point is, isn't it, that the shepherd provides excellent care in the protection of the value of his commodity and not because he loves the sheep for themselves. This is of course a very widely applicable trait of all shepherds. Otherwise you'd prepare them for good survival skills and let 'em go.
I can't find it, but I remember reading about a sociological hypothesis about how what kind of livestock a people kept influenced how that people developed culturally.
Just compare what happens if you let sheep, goats and pigs roam free respectively.
Sheep get eating. Goats devastates the environment by eating everything.
Yes. It's a bit like the bittersweetness of parenting.
When you boil it down a parents job is to "train" their children to become independent by "helping" them increase the length of time before they become homesick.
If not, they just become "sick".
I'm not looking forward to it...but it'll be my job once I send my twins off to college.
Don't worry. Your twins will train you to be a competent long-distance parent. It's hard, and they'll need to be lovingly firm with you, but you'll get through.
Seems the major business plan of most of the social media era is building a base of followers so they can sell their "influence" to the highest bidder (which is always one of the government agencies because they have no limits to spending). So it makes sense that we see so many sell outs.
But this has always been true no matter what the medium of communication is. The dogma of anything always has its authorized version, not to even speak of its special language that has magical import.
This is why words get changed out all the time for the new allowed words which usually say in many more syllables what the previous concise word conveyed excellently.
A rocket ship is just a wooden wagon with several tweaks specific to its purpose.
what may be different now is the sheer amount of competition among different talking heads and "public" figures. I saw a list of the influencers and celebrities that the government was paying and it was thousands of names long. In the old days, it might have been three tv stations, the NY Times/WAPO and a few celebrities.
Well, child preachers ye shall always have with you. And being paid to yak at people is a lot easier than having a real job. That's why telemarketing became such a growth industrly long before we had them teeny hand-held computer thingies.
It's not new to need a hearty dose of common sense to make it through life. It's not new to need to shut the book or put down the magazine when it gives ridiculous advice.
Ditto! Many in the so called medical freedom community were making me anxious and angry and had to unsubscribe. Curate your social media and you’ll feel a lot happier!
This post showed up after I spent the better part of a couple hours last night trying to discern the real story on whether FEMA is helping everyone in Asheville recover or they’re deliberately confiscating any and all materials to let the the citizens rot (the competing viewpoints on social media). I wasn’t able to find anything I thought reliable, and how is that possible???
It is sort of amazing that the post hurricane rescue effort in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and (?) should be the biggest news story in the country, especially if FEMA is doing such a poor job. I feel as if I can no longer trust the news media about anything. It used to be you couldn’t trust them about anything political, but now it seems like you just can’t trust them, period.
You shouldn’t trust anything on the internet, but I believe the account of the helicopter pilot who says he was interfered with while trying to save people, and I believe Musk when he says the Feds were preventing him from trying to help out.
It seems like we as a nation have drifted / pushed? / steered? into a situation where we can’t distinguish between truth and fantasy, or for that matter, right or wrong. - where it is impossible to make correct decisions, or have effective agency.
We hear a lot about Asheville, and maybe hundreds of deaths, but everything else is sort of vague. This “misinformation / disinformation” crap needs to stop.
This noticeably increased with Covid. We didn't get real news. Just proclamations no one could verify. Ukrainian/Russia, the largest war in Europe since WWII, seems to have almost no war correspondenst, no cameramen, and no real coverage. Most of what I've seen is from amature video. Now we have this happening in the aftermath of Helene. It seems that they will not let any news out that has not been passed through the "narative filter". Massive Ukrainian deaths and annihilated infrastructure in Appalachia can't be easily spun, so they don't make it through the filter. I believe the Elites are so desperate about keeping power that they will censor anything that might tip the scales against them no matter how small.
Yes, and the truth is lost in a sea of propaganda. When you identify as your idea, it becomes your primary truth, even beyond objective reality. If it supports your idea it must be true, if it doesn't it's a lie, or must be promoting a lie. If it's an indisputable fact that disproves your idea, it's ignored.
In the beginning was the "deed". The division between thinking and doing does not exist for neurotics; the deed itself becomes a substitute for thought.
I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet. Her therapist will be dancing in the shower of money she rains down on him/her/it/was.
"I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet."
Something like this:
"Mistakes were made on both sides. We should let bygones be bygones. And this should definitely not be a good reason for you to not take me seriously next time."
Usually, the point for such women is to ruin your fun and force you to have fun in the way approved of by her, in a didactic manner of course, for your improvement.
For a man behaving like that, the point is usually an attempt to assert dominance over other men the only way a weak man without humility can: hiding behind social conventions and decorum to heap abuse on others.
And Ryan is Correct, as per usual: "In the beginning was the "deed"'. After that, they're on auto-pilot the same way someone experiencing a psychotic break is.
Just last night, I made a decision, not to walk-away but to refrain from continuing to initiate kindness into a relationship (extended family) that has been focused on these very things. It is sad but a huge relief. Be informed, let the door stay open a crack just in case but surround yourself with good people and write memes about the rest and get on with your life!
Look more than half of these fuckers are on meds. This is why the majority of people are insane! When I see past medical history after past medical history for the last 36 years of “anxiety/depression” followed by a medication list riddled with antidepressants and anti anxiety drugs it is crystal clear to me why we see the behavior we do! Overmedicated free floating anxiety = crazy town USA! This isn’t organic, it’s psychologically and pharmacologically driven.
In my opinion, the meds are the symptom of an underlying problem. People are anxious and depressed and go to the doctor and the doctor puts them on these medications that causes even more anxiety, depression, and then crazy. The underlying problem: we've allowed poison into the food supply; we've allowed them to genetically engineer food without any long-term studies of the consequences. Many plants now make all their own glyphosate and pesticide, and people consume this, and some are more sensitive to it than others. Also, we allow fake food to be sold as actual food. Seed oils are toxic. They are not anything we should be eating. They are fucking you up, so gradually you don't understand the cause.
Those who are sensitive to this crap are the ones who wind up with destroyed metabolisms and gut issues, and they wind up at the doctor who puts them on pharmaceuticals. None of this is probably helped by the over-use of vaccines from day 1, all of which are incredibly suspect at this point. Bottom line - follow the money.
In the 1970s there was a saying: Reality is for those who can't afford the drugs. It was supposed to be a "hip" line but it is, unfortunately, too true. The law of unintended consequences.
I smirked and shook my head in, I don't know, sadness, maybe? I don't pity them, but it is a little sad to see because there is no helping them. You're talking a worldwide deprogramming so massive it will never be undertaken.
I also laughed, like you do when you're young and a friend bumps his head or falls down. The difference between laughing and crying is time, and I've been around long enough to laugh.
Spot on. It was as though someone pulled off the proverbial blinders and collectively (for the most part) we looked around and thought, "WTF?" I know that I haven't been the same since.
We in the West have been schooled into an expectation that there is a political solution to every social problem. There isn’t... but the expectation can lead the most politically engaged kind of people down some big rabbit holes. One of them is a fixation on “Who is to blame” for our discontents. This leads people to see Wokeness as having been deliberately imposed on us normal everyday citizenry by some or other kind of 'elite' (Techno bros, Cultural Marxists, Managerial Elites etc). These ‘elites’ - so the argument runs - are ‘in control’ and must be defeated in order to bring an end to the Woke madness. But this is to seriously misread the nature our 21st c. Western malaise the most salient feature of which is that it has become out of control by anyone. Rather it is a kind of mass psychosis; one that ensnares everyone - rich and poor (especially the rich if anything), young and old (albeit in varying intensities). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
Why yes! Laughter is and always has been the best medicine. Thank God I grew up and spent the earlier part of my adult life in the golden ages of parody, both print and performance.
The angriest people on social media--including Substack--are those without an appreciation for the ridiculous. It's not scathingly silly comedy they're drawn to but the sword of bitter rage, cleverly framed though they may express it.
The thing is, all cults are abusive marriages. You gotta prove your love to the abuser by sewing your eyelids shut.
"they wind up jumping into every new narrative because they are too riled up to do anything but respond to stimulus."
I want to point out that besides the cultural factors that support this state of being - like too much screen time and too little practice at critical thinking - there is also an almost universal physical contributer. The high levels of aluminum in vaccines are associated with increased anxiety. And they give kids the HPV vaccine - the one loaded with massive amounts of aluminum adjuvant - right at the beginning of their middle school years, 2 or 3 doses of it.
I had wondered in the past (before this sort of thing became common) at a person who had so easily changed from one viewpoint on a certain moral topic to the complete opposite one, with seemingly no effort or struggle. I at first wondered how someone could change his deeply held convictions so readily. Then I realized that the first view had not been based on any conviction at all, but just sort of absorbed from the environment.
We are not raising children with well-grounded convictions based on a strong foundation of right and wrong anymore. This is what needs to happen:
Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist.
"Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist."
So well put - wish I could express myself that well.
As for how someone switches from one extreme to its opposite without passing through anything in between, that is usually referred to as "the Horseshoe-theorem" in politics. Simply put, extremes of any kind are more alike than they are different, and the more extreme an -ism becomes, the more the core startens to behave like all other extremes while the surface may well keep superficial icons and emblems of something completely different.
F.e. liberal progressives demanding concentration camps for people saying "no thanks" to mRNA-injections. For a fascist, demanding mandatory vaccination for the well-being of the corporate state is business-as-usual; for a liberal presumably focused on the rights of an individual doing so is beyond the ideological pale.
Thank you for the thorough and well reasoned article. I appreciate your lucid opinions.
As for "this level of excursion from basic human capacity to grasp and adapt to environment, model reality, and even the survival of the basic atavistic drives to self preservation seem effaced, replaced by some manner of utterly haywire self-replicating self-delusion." my coping strategy has been to think of these as societal dead-ender, evolutionary tidal-pools like the Luddites. A necessary attempt by evolution to try a new thing. I don't pity them, they will have a place in history while 'success' is still won by "...the survival of the basic atavistic drives to self preservation...".
Yes, it is fed by the content-spent media looking for the next headline grab. As a member of this evolutionary pool, I feel pretty good <because I can detach > and wondered how we got here till I read your article. Thank you, bad kitty.
You cannot reason with a demoralized person. But you can “meme them until they cry then make memes about them crying.” As a Russian defector, I am offended by your catsplaining ;)
the catsplaining will continue until morale improves.
Here's what I think you're trying to catsplain:
https://youtu.be/vijGdWn5-h8?si=CbsoN9aaLGZD585w
Geez, that cheered me up.
Well just like the parasite-host dynamic eventually woke will make their heads explode.
The good news is those of us here will be immune to the woke and TDS virus.
That cheered me up, too. Now I'm imagining when 5G interacts with nanotech in Covid shots and the zombie jabbed start eating the unvaxxed.
We should do a mockumentary!
Now I’m reviewing ant theory. Thanks for the push. Poor ants! I’ve never seen that episode of NG.
Hey, that's my favorite fungus!
Fungus as a mind virus that kills the host...yet perpetuates both species.
Talk about a symbiotic relationship.
Virtually the same with humans. It's actually fun to watch evolution in real time.
Eventually TDS will speciate our species, like old world monkeys being separated by land or sea.
I don't think I want to be one of those ants.
😕 I don't have a favorite fungus.
And that, my friends, is how dumpacraps are created.
That’s something I didn’t need to see today.
Are we witnessing spontaneous combustion, . . . . finally?
I'll stick around, at least until the toxoplasmosis kicks in ... 😉🙂
But several points in your latest remind me of a famous quote from Hannah Arendt:
HA: "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8110811-the-ideal-subject-of-totalitarian-rule-is-not-the-convinced
Somewhat moot whether there are more of those "reason-challenged" among the Democrats or the Republicans -- or among their so-called leaders and "champions".
as it should, jeffe Gato.
As a proud descendent of Poland, I am offended at your Russianness. 😁
As someone of Germanic heritage, I am offended by both of you.
As someone of Polish, German, and Russian heritage, I have no idea who to be offended by.
I’d go with everyone.
Yeah, I need to take up the cause against Polish/German/Russian supremacy.
I think that you may actually explode….
I would say touché but I'm sure there are Frenchmen hanging around waiting to be offended by my cultural appropriation.
Those cheese eating surrender monkeys don’t have the guts to chime in.
I love banter. It’s a trait that runs strong throughout my extended family.
Best laugh of the day!
Now you've up and done it: offended all monkeys. Them being an inarticulate species, they express themselves by sudden action...you've been warned!
They can and will tear your face off!
😂🤭
Nordic looking down on all three. ;)
That's only cause you're taller.
"meme them until they cry then make memes about them crying." Then withhold the box of tissue ; )
LOLOL
"If you lose your ego, you lose the thread of that narrative you call your Self. Humans, however, can't live very long without some sense of a continuing story. Such stories go beyond the limited rational system (or the systematic rationality) with which you surround yourself; they are crucial keys to sharing time-experience with others.
Now a narrative is a story, not a logic, nor ethics, nor philosophy. It is a dream you keep having, whether you realize it or not. Just as surely as you breathe, you go on ceaselessly dreaming your story. And in these stories you wear two faces. You are simultaneously subject and object. You are a whole and you are a part. You are real and you are shadow. "Storyteller" and at the same time "character". It is through such multilayering of roles in our stories that we heal the loneliness of being an isolated individual in the world.
Yet without a proper ego nobody can create a personal narrative, any more than you can drive a car without an engine, or cast a shadow without a real physical object. But once you've consigned your ego to someone else, where on earth do you go from there?
At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego.
Just what kind of narrative?
It needn't be anything particularly fancy, nothing complicated or refined. You don't need to have literary ambitions. In fact, the sketchier and simpler the better. Junk, a leftover rehash will do. Anyway, most people are tired of complex, multilayered scenarios-they are a potential letdown. It's precisely because people can't find any fixed point within their own multilayered schemes that they're tossing aside their own self-identity."
-
- Haruki Murakami
A little off topic but I think it applies.
These days on the craziness of the world, I created a simple strategy. I create a short list of things I want to get done.
At the end of the day instead of beating myself up for nit getting more done. I have started congratulating myself for completing that small doable list. I let myself succeed.
Yes. I have to do the same thing.
I always tell my employees to accomplish 3 small things per day; 3 larger initiatives per month; and three projects in a quarter.
And to not get bogged down with a list of 184 things....because the list will always be there. It's really hard for younger employees to get that. They think they have to check off everything so that it goes away the next day....which it never does in reality.
Plus if you structure your days like this many items on a list take care if themselves by virtue of just trying to accomplish the bigger to-dos vs. managing by crisis.
I always told my employees "I don't pay you to sit on your ass". Didn't work out so well because they were software guys so, maybe I WAS paying them to sit on their asses.
excellent Ryan, great advice and guidance from the "boss"
Lolol. I'm the best idiot boss this side of the Mississippi
Oh yes. Well thought out plan, Linda. I am the same.
back in the day I was a super multitasker - BAM I got a zillion things done.
I have changed of course, now, I DO make that list every day and then do the things
that more importantly make me "feel" I accomplished the necessaries over desires.
My oldest daughter just turned 40!! I suggested she just work on keeping the kids on their "rafts" and healthy, and do one necessary thing and one thing that you want to do.
Then you do not feel like a slave. Those days with kids in early school years were crazy.
Now I am older, I do more wants than needs haha haha
My problem is that I lose the list after I write it. 🤪
Lol. Sometimes i spend more time consolidating list than clearing them.
I like it.
I've tried ending the day with a What Went Right? reflection but perhaps not frequently enough.
Sound like it should be more central.
"One should endeavor to keep one's ego small, and entirely to oneself." ---Me
Gotta go, have a good one.
The "pull" advice at the end of this post is astute. As Ben Hunt puts it, when ingesting the media, we should always ask: "Why am I reading this, and why am I reading this NOW?" Everything "pushed" at us is driven by an agenda and a narrative. We need to understand both before consuming.
I turned off push notifications on all my apps years ago. I would never turn them back on.
Otherwise you're the "product"...in both senses of the word
I missed the initial quotation marks and thought "Wow, that's extremely profound and insightful! Ryan is quite the philosopher." Then I get to the end.
Still apropos, right?
Of course. Just disappointed. I was ready to get you a book deal.
I was pretty pumped too and then saw the author's name and went, "Oh."
But, yes. Apropos.
Shiiit...you know I'm not that smart!...:)
See, I'm not the only one this happened to.
Excellent quote. Thank you.
Homerun, Ryan.
"At this point you receive a new narrative from the person to whom you have entrusted your ego. You've handed over the real thing, so what comes back is a shadow. And once your ego has merged with another ego, your narrative will necessarily take on the narrative created by that ego."
This is the precise function of the corporate media. When interacting with my friends still inside the media bubble/matrix, it is clear to me that the effect of propaganda is to transfer the 'existential' fear that the regime (correctly!) feels about Trump on to them, to make them feel as if Trump is a direct and personal threat to themselves -- it becomes their identity.
Defending the narrative then becomes an act of self-defense; they feel personally threatened by those opposing viewpoints and this explains their complete inability to engage with, understand, or even view them.
That Dr. Natalla one sounded like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDHisWRsE98
That aside, someone went off on me about the first Trump assassin. They exploded with, "Next time, hire an adult with better shooting skills!"
I guess the "voice from the TV" where they get their news failed to tell them that the shooter was twenty years old, practiced shooting at a range where ATF practiced and was known as an excellent shot, and also had multiple cell phones and connected to overseas encrypted accounts.
What triggered this was a comment by me that it was amazing how the story disappeared from the media, unlike other assassinations of my lifetime: JFK, Wallace, MLK, Bobby, etc.
Dr. Natalia's post goes to the heart of how indoctrinated and twisted a significant segment of humanity have become. Kamekazi pilots out of "love" for humanity.
Yes. Exactly.
And they'll strap their helmets on without noticing the irony.
It's virtually passed parody at this point.
Lemmings free-falling between the precipice and the sea...whilst embracing their love for lemming-ness all the way to impact?
SPLAT...:]
that is horrible. leftists have hearts of ash, gravel, soot.... just damaged hearts. I feel bad for them.... sometimes
Emotional group-oriented people (and peoples) create a story about reality, which they then super-impose on reality, trying to force reality to become as the story say it is.
Pragmatic task-oriented people (and peoples) look at the reality at hand here and now, and then decide together how to act according to actual reality.
Most women are more group-oriented than most men. Most men are more pragmatic than most women. Most women are more emotional than most men, and most men are more fact-oriented than most women.
Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.
Thus, the optimal societal structure is a merit/proven ability/deed-based one, where duty to family and society comes before personal emotions or personal profit(eering), as evidenced by reality itself:
Compare and contrast Norway to Venezuela, or Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, or the USA pre-1960s to post-1990s.
Behind every good society is good men with good women behind them.
That should earn me some feminist anger. 😁
Nah, that's been true throughout history - behind The Man you'll find a woman, or a group of women even (mother, wife, daughters, sisters and such) all influencing him in different ways to get their will manifested.
Octavian had his Livia, and she was no meek little "Handmaid's tale"-wannabe. There's basically not a general, dictator, high priest, whatever throughout history without a female confidante helping him along.
The problem for the feminists is, they always only go looking for "positive" examples, instead of actual reality: can't hold up Theodora of Byzantium without also holding up Erzsébet Báthory too, so to speak.
There's a long list throughout history. Lucrezia Borgia comes to mind...
“ Therefore, women in charge and women in a group will always revert towards creating a story about reality, while men in charge and in a group will tend towards more pragmatic approaches to immediate situations.” Tru dat. This dynamic is also responsible for the enshitification of lots of formally dependable institutions.
I love these narratives because they are completely without any consideration of the long history of humanity, which has been - almost without interruption - ruled by men with facts, and it has not been a primrose path of sweet paradise. Men with facts rule Afghanistan. Men with facts rule Iran. Men with facts rule North Korea. Men with facts ruled Nazi Germany. Men with facts gave us nazism, socialism and communism. Now more men with facts are saying women with emotion are to blame for the wide spread ills that plague mankind today.
As our formerly rational, competent, and productive society descends into estrogen and SSRI soaked madness, the best you can do is "but what about the Taliban"? Really?
Can you point to a single rational, competent, and productive society in history run by women? Just one? Because to me rule by men looks like a necessary precondition. All you are saying that rule by men alone is insufficient - a proposition which few would disagree with.
It would be hard to do as you've asked, as there really haven't been many instances where women have ruled. But if more female way of thinking and acting has taken over, who allowed it? Women vote in far larger numbers - why? You are correct that sane men must reclaim the narrative, but first they must stop shoving the blame on women and step back up. "She did it" isn't going to get anyone out of this mess.
I agree. So what have I done personally, and what do I advise others to do?
Vote, as you say, but also start saying "no". A lot.
I've done this at work against the constant race baiting these women are involved in (with the occasional - and I do mean occasional - cucked beta male).
I'm no longer involved in a church that recently hired a female pastor that does this insane shit (to the unnecessary detriment of my personal relationships, thanks pastor girlboss), I'm off social media entirely (substack does not count, IMO, because it can be anonymous, thus it doesn't drive social signaling as much), and I'll say things that make people uncomfortable when they bring these things up in person.
My approach is to tune it out online, but confront it pretty aggressively in person.
I think you may have answered your own question. There are no examples of a society where women have ruled, because women are terrible rulers, generally. Of course, life is a bell-curve, and you always have outliers, like Hatshepsut and Boudica, but the normal distribution of men vs. women, men make better rulers or leaders. Why is this? Nature. It's that simple, and part of the problem with modern society is that we have completely denied Nature. We think we can create our own reality where the laws of Nature do not apply because we are so smart nowadays. But you might as well try living at the bottom of the ocean. It will be about as successful.
Who allowed it? We allowed it. We thought we wanted weak men so we could be in charge. I mean that sounds so great. Kinda like the way they market terrible ideas to you when you are young, like Marxism. Weak men make bad times. And here we are.
Perhaps if you read what I wrote instead?
I did. Pragmatically.
What's wrong with it then?
I wrote a whole Substack on this theme (and I am a woman, btw): https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/where-have-all-the-real-men-gone-c3b
True. All the fear mongering drives you nuts. I unsubscribed from several Substackers, because they are just as bad as the other side - media. I expected to see a comment from Yuri already and I did not get disappointed!
Good for you.
It's always good to keep in mind that the shepherd often eats the sheep in the end.
At the least he sells them out.
Precisely. Haha. I literally almost inserted ellipses after "in the end" and added "or sell them down the river"
But I thought it would muddy the waters...lol
The point is, isn't it, that the shepherd provides excellent care in the protection of the value of his commodity and not because he loves the sheep for themselves. This is of course a very widely applicable trait of all shepherds. Otherwise you'd prepare them for good survival skills and let 'em go.
I can't find it, but I remember reading about a sociological hypothesis about how what kind of livestock a people kept influenced how that people developed culturally.
Just compare what happens if you let sheep, goats and pigs roam free respectively.
Sheep get eating. Goats devastates the environment by eating everything.
And pigs go feral inside a year if not tended to.
Pigs have such human traits.
Interesting.
I didn't know that about pigs.
But it makes sense; they're smart enough to know they just want to be themselves.
"the shepherd provides excellent care in the protection of the value of his commodity"
Ding Ding Ding!
Yes. It's a bit like the bittersweetness of parenting.
When you boil it down a parents job is to "train" their children to become independent by "helping" them increase the length of time before they become homesick.
If not, they just become "sick".
I'm not looking forward to it...but it'll be my job once I send my twins off to college.
Don't worry. Your twins will train you to be a competent long-distance parent. It's hard, and they'll need to be lovingly firm with you, but you'll get through.
Signed, Successful Graduate of the Program
Seems the major business plan of most of the social media era is building a base of followers so they can sell their "influence" to the highest bidder (which is always one of the government agencies because they have no limits to spending). So it makes sense that we see so many sell outs.
But this has always been true no matter what the medium of communication is. The dogma of anything always has its authorized version, not to even speak of its special language that has magical import.
This is why words get changed out all the time for the new allowed words which usually say in many more syllables what the previous concise word conveyed excellently.
A rocket ship is just a wooden wagon with several tweaks specific to its purpose.
what may be different now is the sheer amount of competition among different talking heads and "public" figures. I saw a list of the influencers and celebrities that the government was paying and it was thousands of names long. In the old days, it might have been three tv stations, the NY Times/WAPO and a few celebrities.
Well, child preachers ye shall always have with you. And being paid to yak at people is a lot easier than having a real job. That's why telemarketing became such a growth industrly long before we had them teeny hand-held computer thingies.
It's not new to need a hearty dose of common sense to make it through life. It's not new to need to shut the book or put down the magazine when it gives ridiculous advice.
Ditto! Many in the so called medical freedom community were making me anxious and angry and had to unsubscribe. Curate your social media and you’ll feel a lot happier!
This post showed up after I spent the better part of a couple hours last night trying to discern the real story on whether FEMA is helping everyone in Asheville recover or they’re deliberately confiscating any and all materials to let the the citizens rot (the competing viewpoints on social media). I wasn’t able to find anything I thought reliable, and how is that possible???
It is sort of amazing that the post hurricane rescue effort in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and (?) should be the biggest news story in the country, especially if FEMA is doing such a poor job. I feel as if I can no longer trust the news media about anything. It used to be you couldn’t trust them about anything political, but now it seems like you just can’t trust them, period.
You shouldn’t trust anything on the internet, but I believe the account of the helicopter pilot who says he was interfered with while trying to save people, and I believe Musk when he says the Feds were preventing him from trying to help out.
It seems like we as a nation have drifted / pushed? / steered? into a situation where we can’t distinguish between truth and fantasy, or for that matter, right or wrong. - where it is impossible to make correct decisions, or have effective agency.
We hear a lot about Asheville, and maybe hundreds of deaths, but everything else is sort of vague. This “misinformation / disinformation” crap needs to stop.
This noticeably increased with Covid. We didn't get real news. Just proclamations no one could verify. Ukrainian/Russia, the largest war in Europe since WWII, seems to have almost no war correspondenst, no cameramen, and no real coverage. Most of what I've seen is from amature video. Now we have this happening in the aftermath of Helene. It seems that they will not let any news out that has not been passed through the "narative filter". Massive Ukrainian deaths and annihilated infrastructure in Appalachia can't be easily spun, so they don't make it through the filter. I believe the Elites are so desperate about keeping power that they will censor anything that might tip the scales against them no matter how small.
"Just proclamations no one could verify."
Often release in pairs of opposing narratives. It's difficult to verify one story when both sides are just flooding the zone with propaganda.
Yes, and the truth is lost in a sea of propaganda. When you identify as your idea, it becomes your primary truth, even beyond objective reality. If it supports your idea it must be true, if it doesn't it's a lie, or must be promoting a lie. If it's an indisputable fact that disproves your idea, it's ignored.
https://youtu.be/MYdC-6nShdc?si=_krP91CF1LJ1-EuZ
The ranting lady...what was her point?
IKR? I had to stop watching. That is but one example of the many reasons we finally...just...had...to...leave...Boston.
NOTHING.
In the beginning was the "deed". The division between thinking and doing does not exist for neurotics; the deed itself becomes a substitute for thought.
That’s a better explanation than mine.
Both good.
Virtue Signalling is what you do when you don't have any real virtues:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152040796661573&set=a.271447476572
That is so spot on, it's profound...and simple but no simpler
I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet. Her therapist will be dancing in the shower of money she rains down on him/her/it/was.
"I’d be curious to know how she’ll amend her psyche when Trump wins and she doesn’t become a slave or have to wear a red bonnet."
Something like this:
"Mistakes were made on both sides. We should let bygones be bygones. And this should definitely not be a good reason for you to not take me seriously next time."
Lol
Usually, the point for such women is to ruin your fun and force you to have fun in the way approved of by her, in a didactic manner of course, for your improvement.
For a man behaving like that, the point is usually an attempt to assert dominance over other men the only way a weak man without humility can: hiding behind social conventions and decorum to heap abuse on others.
And Ryan is Correct, as per usual: "In the beginning was the "deed"'. After that, they're on auto-pilot the same way someone experiencing a psychotic break is.
Fun is sexist 😄
Axiomatically, if so then sexism is fun. 😁
"I'm black!"
That was it. That was the whole point.
Faster to ask, "what doesn't anger you, my dear?"
I don’t think these folks have a point. Somehow their buttons get pushed and they are on autopilot.
When their buttons get pushed they have affirmation and meaning in their lives. Pathetic!
Just last night, I made a decision, not to walk-away but to refrain from continuing to initiate kindness into a relationship (extended family) that has been focused on these very things. It is sad but a huge relief. Be informed, let the door stay open a crack just in case but surround yourself with good people and write memes about the rest and get on with your life!
Ditto!
Look more than half of these fuckers are on meds. This is why the majority of people are insane! When I see past medical history after past medical history for the last 36 years of “anxiety/depression” followed by a medication list riddled with antidepressants and anti anxiety drugs it is crystal clear to me why we see the behavior we do! Overmedicated free floating anxiety = crazy town USA! This isn’t organic, it’s psychologically and pharmacologically driven.
In my opinion, the meds are the symptom of an underlying problem. People are anxious and depressed and go to the doctor and the doctor puts them on these medications that causes even more anxiety, depression, and then crazy. The underlying problem: we've allowed poison into the food supply; we've allowed them to genetically engineer food without any long-term studies of the consequences. Many plants now make all their own glyphosate and pesticide, and people consume this, and some are more sensitive to it than others. Also, we allow fake food to be sold as actual food. Seed oils are toxic. They are not anything we should be eating. They are fucking you up, so gradually you don't understand the cause.
Those who are sensitive to this crap are the ones who wind up with destroyed metabolisms and gut issues, and they wind up at the doctor who puts them on pharmaceuticals. None of this is probably helped by the over-use of vaccines from day 1, all of which are incredibly suspect at this point. Bottom line - follow the money.
In the 1970s there was a saying: Reality is for those who can't afford the drugs. It was supposed to be a "hip" line but it is, unfortunately, too true. The law of unintended consequences.
A good person to follow on this topic is Dr. Roger McFillin and his account "Radically Genuine."
I smirked and shook my head in, I don't know, sadness, maybe? I don't pity them, but it is a little sad to see because there is no helping them. You're talking a worldwide deprogramming so massive it will never be undertaken.
I also laughed, like you do when you're young and a friend bumps his head or falls down. The difference between laughing and crying is time, and I've been around long enough to laugh.
Maybe every day of our lives has been April's Fools Day, but we didn't notice it until Covid?
Spot on. It was as though someone pulled off the proverbial blinders and collectively (for the most part) we looked around and thought, "WTF?" I know that I haven't been the same since.
Haha, Groundhog day and April Fools day rolled into one. I like it!
Even better. That's perfect!
We in the West have been schooled into an expectation that there is a political solution to every social problem. There isn’t... but the expectation can lead the most politically engaged kind of people down some big rabbit holes. One of them is a fixation on “Who is to blame” for our discontents. This leads people to see Wokeness as having been deliberately imposed on us normal everyday citizenry by some or other kind of 'elite' (Techno bros, Cultural Marxists, Managerial Elites etc). These ‘elites’ - so the argument runs - are ‘in control’ and must be defeated in order to bring an end to the Woke madness. But this is to seriously misread the nature our 21st c. Western malaise the most salient feature of which is that it has become out of control by anyone. Rather it is a kind of mass psychosis; one that ensnares everyone - rich and poor (especially the rich if anything), young and old (albeit in varying intensities). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
Why yes! Laughter is and always has been the best medicine. Thank God I grew up and spent the earlier part of my adult life in the golden ages of parody, both print and performance.
The angriest people on social media--including Substack--are those without an appreciation for the ridiculous. It's not scathingly silly comedy they're drawn to but the sword of bitter rage, cleverly framed though they may express it.
The thing is, all cults are abusive marriages. You gotta prove your love to the abuser by sewing your eyelids shut.
Once humor and satire became criminalized as 'hate speech', I knew we were approaching the end.
If the first casualty of war is the truth, then the first casualty of a culture war must be sense of humor, followed by irony and nuance.
Spot on
Well, the end of the current era, that's all.
"they wind up jumping into every new narrative because they are too riled up to do anything but respond to stimulus."
I want to point out that besides the cultural factors that support this state of being - like too much screen time and too little practice at critical thinking - there is also an almost universal physical contributer. The high levels of aluminum in vaccines are associated with increased anxiety. And they give kids the HPV vaccine - the one loaded with massive amounts of aluminum adjuvant - right at the beginning of their middle school years, 2 or 3 doses of it.
Such a good point, Tonya, one that needs repeating over and over and over. These G-damned injections! This never-ending injection of junk and poison.
And let’s not forget the amount of people on weed and alcohol. I smell the weed everywhere I go, ugh.
We’ve lost the ability to think, to hold conflicting ideas in tension. To understand that good questions are more important than the right answer.
I had wondered in the past (before this sort of thing became common) at a person who had so easily changed from one viewpoint on a certain moral topic to the complete opposite one, with seemingly no effort or struggle. I at first wondered how someone could change his deeply held convictions so readily. Then I realized that the first view had not been based on any conviction at all, but just sort of absorbed from the environment.
We are not raising children with well-grounded convictions based on a strong foundation of right and wrong anymore. This is what needs to happen:
Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist.
"Here is what we believe, and why we believe it. You are welcome to challenge it and present your reasons for doing so, but we are going to work through it together logically. You are going to develop convictions based on foundational truths, and ones that won't be so easily swayed by the zeitgeist."
So well put - wish I could express myself that well.
As for how someone switches from one extreme to its opposite without passing through anything in between, that is usually referred to as "the Horseshoe-theorem" in politics. Simply put, extremes of any kind are more alike than they are different, and the more extreme an -ism becomes, the more the core startens to behave like all other extremes while the surface may well keep superficial icons and emblems of something completely different.
F.e. liberal progressives demanding concentration camps for people saying "no thanks" to mRNA-injections. For a fascist, demanding mandatory vaccination for the well-being of the corporate state is business-as-usual; for a liberal presumably focused on the rights of an individual doing so is beyond the ideological pale.
Another "K" for the pitcher.
Thank you for the thorough and well reasoned article. I appreciate your lucid opinions.
As for "this level of excursion from basic human capacity to grasp and adapt to environment, model reality, and even the survival of the basic atavistic drives to self preservation seem effaced, replaced by some manner of utterly haywire self-replicating self-delusion." my coping strategy has been to think of these as societal dead-ender, evolutionary tidal-pools like the Luddites. A necessary attempt by evolution to try a new thing. I don't pity them, they will have a place in history while 'success' is still won by "...the survival of the basic atavistic drives to self preservation...".
Yes, it is fed by the content-spent media looking for the next headline grab. As a member of this evolutionary pool, I feel pretty good <because I can detach > and wondered how we got here till I read your article. Thank you, bad kitty.