The punishment of Sisyphus seems bizarre. This king, in Greek mythology, was condemned for all eternity to the struggle of pushing a massive boulder up a steep hill only to have it roll back down again. What was his crime against the gods?
Sisyphus outsmarted and chained up Thanatos what happened (Death) according to some versions. Whereas in other accounts, they emphasize that he leveraged information to secure the Peirene Spring for the city of Corinth. In both cases it was him cheating death. Fresh water was key for a city up on a hill—with waterborne disease a big problem with stagnant waters. And keeping Death bound also allowed mortals to live without fear of dying for a period of time.
This myth is the perfect metaphor for human progress. We have been so very successful for a century—or two—that many are ignorant of how life was before the widespread use of antibiotics and vaccines. We still have survivors of polio alive today—people with lifelong disabilities due to their illness—yet a fairly large population remains blissfully unaware of the risk of being unprotected.
A recent reminder of this is the measles outbreak that is currently sweeping through Amish and Mennonite communities. Hundreds of cases are reported (many more likely unreported), almost entirely among the unvaccinated. It’s not too surprising—hearing of their accounts of severe illness—that a local clinic that caters to Old Order Anabaptists has seen a significant spike in demand for MMR vaccines.
True, only a handful of deaths can currently be directly attributed to this disease. And sure, we can argue that a ruptured spleen during birth is more the fault of an unlicensed midwife than it is the organ being inflamed and vulnerable due to the viral infection. It’s technically not the fall that kills; it is the sudden stop at the end when you hit the ground. But let’s not be cute about it: measles comes with health consequences which will often extend beyond the initial sickness.
However, this is hubris that cuts both ways. It is not just the “did my own research” type who dooms humanity to a repeat cycle. It can also be the overconfidence of formally educated and designated authorities. Dr. Anthony Fauci’s declarations on MSNBC—“Attacks on me… are attacks on science”—and saying “I represent science” on CBS’s Face the Nation later—border on delusional. Wisdom isn’t derived from the mere accumulation of knowledge—its humility and understanding that our knowledge (dogma) can be a blind spot—even become a hindrance to growth in perspective. Nobody is immune.
A younger Amish co-worker (one of those vaccinated against measles) confided in me that his own doubts arose because of the COVID response. Prior to the pandemic he had faith in the medical profession, and I’ll confess to a similar experience. There’s a backlash that was earned.
The reality is this: in the 1950s we thought we would beat disease. We raised a whole generation who saw progress as linear, humanity finally overcoming disease through hygiene and antibiotics. But another generation has learned that there are consequences to advancements. Nature snaps back; we now have autoimmune disorders and allergies like never before. Antibiotic resistance may eventually erase much of the advantage we have enjoyed. Maybe this modernist notion of a climb into some utopian end is mythological, and the nature of reality is cyclical? Science is not our salvation.
And it’s layers of complexity. Our modern institutions, formed by extraordinary men, had gained our trust through successes. A silent testimony of child graves from only a century ago is the traction Dr. Fauci found for his career. But like our discovering the flaws in our once-infallible parents, and as brilliant innovators are replaced with those who are mere caretakers of an established system, we learn there was no truly sacred substance there. And our doubts cause us to lose grip on the boulder civilization has labored to move. Either by forgetting those lessons that got us to our heights or by our flight too close to the sun (the myth of Icarus), we come crashing down to Earth again.
I suppose both our ignorance and our arrogance could be our downfall. As I see a race towards a potential AI apocalypse, with ‘the science’ unable to contain itself, or observe the loss of sense of those who didn’t experience the plagues of the past firsthand to appreciate the benefit of an imperfect solution, I can’t decide what will lead us to the punishment for our having held back disease and death. I only suspect that the action will produce an equal and opposite reaction. Or maybe we can hand Sisyphus a stick to prop that rock and live indefinitely in a fragile balance?
A myth is a warning about something true and goes beyond mere facts and medical journals. There is a level of human reality that isn’t better explained in their academic pages or technical terms. We’re doomed to repeat history because the failure that leads to our next fall comes in a slightly different form each time. But it seems inevitable: civilization has a life cycle. It appears to be invincible during the rise; conquers heights never previously seen before (in the memory of those ascending) before it loses steam and all that was an asset turns to liabilities. We think we have defeated disease, and yet we have only bought ourselves a reprieve.
In the aftermath of the Israeli sneak attack on Iran, this being only the lastest of many provocations, some of my friends defended this move as necessity for the protection of Christian civilization. I mean, after all, there are crowds that chant “death to Israel” and “death to America” and couldn’t possibly be talking about the foreign policies or political regimes, right? It’s not like we dream about draining the swamp ourselves, is it?
But of the outrages of the Iranian response to yet another act of aggression—a missile landing near a hospital had the Zionist state going full propaganda mode. They called it deliberate, criminal, barbaric and gave this as the reason why there needs to be regime change in Tehran. The only thing is, only a day or so earlier the IDF had struck several Iranian hospitals and they have continued to do so even while calling it uncivilized for their enemy to do the same in response.
Did Iran target a hospital? Take a look at this picture and tell me what you see.
The American ‘Christian’ public is bigoted and easily bamboozled. They couldn’t tell you the difference between a Persian or an Arab—yet will tell you with total confidence that Iran has it coming while totally ignoring all of the atrocious acts of their own side in this conflict. When Israel began their Gaza campaign and deliberately struck a hospital, they justified it by claiming that there was a Hamas tunnel under it. The claim was not independently verified. Since then 31 of the 36 health care facilities in this occupied and besieged Palestinian territory have been severely damaged or destroyed.
There has been no accountability for what Israel does. The indiscriminate campaign in Gaza has potentially taken hundreds of thousands of lives, the vast majority of the casualties civilians and children given that Hamas represents only a fraction of Gaza’s population. Only 7% voted for them to rule. There is absolutely no justification for what is a campaign of collective punishment and annihilation of a native people. And this did not all start October 7th—the daring and deadly incursion currently being used as an excuse for the brutal destruction that has taken place since then—it has been the pattern for decades.
The question that one must ask is this: What is so civilized about bombing children in tents?
What is Christian about starving them to death?
This is all by design — not an accident.
This one-way outrage and pretending to have the moral upper hand while doing the same or worse is a feature of the Zionist doublethink.
Israel can take boys and then detain them indefinitely for merely throwing rocks at the occupation’s military vehicles—even rape or mistreat them—but Hamas is evil for taking captives mostly as a means of bargaining to get their own people back?
Zionists cloak themselves as the defenders of democracy while using hate speech law to crush those who dissent to the collective punishment of whole populations.
They claim that Islam is barbaric, both cruel to women and intrinsically violent, but then ignore the millions of innocents that they’ve starved, delimbed or incinerated—building their fake Zion on the pile of corpses.
Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Anyone who has flown commercial knows the safety rundown before take-off. You’re instructed on where to find lifejackets and how to put on the oxygen masks. And one thing they emphasize is before taking care of anyone else, including children, they need to secure their own oxygen first. This does not mean that a passenger shouldn’t care at all about anyone else. What it means is that caring for ourselves first can make us more able to help others.
I came across a post of Facebook about the vandalism and terror campaign against Elon Musk’s Tesla brand. In the comments I saw a left-wing activist justifying their violence by using a paraphrase of Musk, “empathy is a weakness.” So I looked into the claim and found a quote of Musk during a Joe Rogan Experience podcast:
There’s a guy who posts on X who’s great, Gad Saad? … Yeah, he’s awesome, and he talks about, you know, basically suicidal empathy. Like, there’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on. And it’s like, I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide. … The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.
I’m not sure where “empathy is a weakness” can be found there. What it seems Musk is saying is to keep everything in balance and not go to self-destructive extremes. I would call it rational pragmatism rather than use a weird sounding “suicidal empathy” and yet it is a poignant point. We can understand and share the feelings of others (empathy) while not destroying civilization in the process. It is sort of how I always listen to my son, but don’t always give him stuff that he wants—because the soda and sweets could lead to tooth decay and diabetes.
This is the Gad Saad quote referenced by Musk in the interview:
Imagine an entire civilization that is taken over by an emotional parasite called suicidal empathy that trumps every other instinct that is within your adaptive repertoire. You are willing to sacrifice everything at the Altar of Suicidal Empathy. Nothing is more important than that.
What he’s taking on is the ideologies that demand we recognize, accept and finance every kind of bizarre behavior. Money being sent for transgender operas when we have crumbling infrastructure, for example, this is what suicidal empathy looks like. Or letting a confused men destroy women’s sports—there is an opportunity cost to these special accomodations and, with limited resources, it means many will suffer for the whims of a few demanding empathy in the form of their own exemptions and privileges.
My son may want me to taking him fishing every day. To him I have limitless time and resources. He says it would only take me a few minutes to drive him across town to his favorite spot. But what he doesn’t really get is how doing this is difficult given I can’t just leave baby at home and it also cuts into my time to do the chores he neglects. To him it seems simple and he reacts with disgust as if he is entitled to transportation and a life of leisure at the expense of everyone else in the house—yet the adults know better.
Performative Empathy vs. True Compassion
Nobody at DOGE is saying we should beat or bully transgender people or forbid people from donating to foreign causes. What they have advocated is for efficient and effective use of public funds. Yes, it could be called “tough love” and yet it is really essentially to the thriving—even surviving—of the country that we don’t bleed resources for minimal or no real return. Government is not a charity, it relies on coercion to attain funds, for that reason it should only be used for things the majority of people support.
Those burning Tesla supercharger stations, smashing out dealership windows, or even attacking vehicles owned by individuals not named Elon may claim to represent the side of empathy, but their’s is only performative empathy and part of their partisan political agenda that is all about maintaining their own power and control over others. Those same people forcing mandates, in the name of climate change, have now spun a 180 to creating unnecessary pollution. They never cared about the planet—it is always about their belief they have the right to rule us.
That is what toxic empathy is about. It is a manipulation game, a virtue signal, and like the jealous boyfriend’s love. Sure, they say they love, and yet would murder before they would ever let their significant other go their own way or be apart from them. This is, of course, symptomatic of leftism. They want complete control over your life and yet call a billionaire greedy for being allowed to keep the wealth they’ve amassed. And that’s the real culprit here: Envy. It’s not that those on the left care so much about people, it is that they are looking for a moral justification for their rage against successful people.
Leftist ’empathy’ strikes again.
Elon Musk is many things. He’s extremely motivated. A problem solver. A billionaire. A bit of an online troll. A father of fourteen children. Efficiency expert. And also has Asberger’s syndrome. It is that last item on the list that puts him at odds with normies who prefer lawyerspeak to bluntness. Musk doesn’t coat anything in syrup, he analyzes, identifies the problem, and states it plainly rather than beat around the bush. Contrast to the left, he puts logic and reasoning first—feelings second.
As an aside, CEOs and political leaders have a higher likelihood of being psychopaths. It is what makes them good at their jobs. You can’t make good decisions for a corporation or a country when you’re too zeroed in and obsessing over impacts to individuals. That is going to lead to analysis paralysis and no necessary corrections being made. Instead they think on the macro scale. This is not to say they don’t care about the parts, but the good of the whole is what matters to them and they distribute concern according to the overall picture. Sure it may seem cold and calculated—but serves the common good much better than empathy run amok.
As much as those on the left like to crow—as if their great empathy stretches across the globe—the reality is their typically very focused on their own feelings.
Their ’empathy’ is unsustainable.
Myopic.
Blind.
Christian compassion, in contrast, balances judgment and mercy. You do unto others as you want them to do to you, but also speak the truth in love—even when it gets you killed by an angry mob that doesn’t want to hear it. The tension or fusion of love and accountability keeps it grounded; it’s not a free-for-all where every whim gets a blank check. Unlike leftist empathy, which often bends toward appeasement or control, Christian compassion holds a line—help the widow and orphan, yes, but don’t burn down the house to warm them. It’s personal, not performative, and it doesn’t bankrupt the future for the sake of today’s applause.
Breathing Room for Civilization
In the end, the clash isn’t about empathy versus apathy—it’s about who gets to breathe first when the masks drop. Musk and Saad aren’t wrong to call out the self-inflicted wounds of suicidal empathy; they’re just pointing to the scoreboard: civilizations that forget their own oxygen don’t survive to help anyone. Leftist empathy, with its envy-fueled ‘virtue’ and reckless spending, dresses up as love but flirts with collapse—torching Teslas while preaching care, funding operas while bridges crumble. Christian compassion, for all its flaws, at least remembers the whole plane matters, not just the loudest sob story. We don’t need more performative tears or smashed windows—we need a hard reset on what keeps us aloft. Secure your mask, folks; the turbulence is just beginning.
Remember, as a child, those day-dreams of a life unrestricted by parental control, where it would be video games all night, ice cream, pizza, and soda all day? What is amazing is upon reaching adulthood the thought of this lifestyle is disgusting. First off, it would be horribly unhealthy—in the sense that those who indulge bulge. Second, a party every day is totally unsustainable, someone has to do the work to keep the lights on and put food on the table.
Many people become more conservative as they mature and start to realize the value of the limitations they once spurned. Yes, an adult will modify what was taught to them by their parents and community. And some grew up in social environments where there was not much worthy to be preserved. But to totally throw away everything inherited from prior generations is a terrible mistake. Only an ideological extremist believes stripping it all bare is necessary and good. It is wiser to build on what works.
That is not to say that the tradition passed down can’t become stifling and overbearing or limiting our potential either. There must be a bit of flexibility, some Oikonomia, or means to adapt the rules as the need arises. However, the opposite ditch, of discarding everything and starting from scratch very quickly becomes chaotic, everyone does what is right in their own eyes, and it soon requires authoritarian measures to enforce the vision. This is the thing Nietzsche warned about—our morality is not self-evident and we should think long and hard about those monsters that we will release with our neglect.
This wasn’t a sacrilege, it was a lament of what happens when you yank the foundational rug out from under a moral system.
Cultural revolution, while always promising to upend systems of oppression and usher in a new utopian age, ends up being worse than what it is replaced. Yes, “All animals are equal” may be the founding cry, but is very soon after modified by opportunists who sadly are now unrestrained by those institutions despised and yet there for a reason. The only good thing is that this out-of-balance off-kilter, ‘we know better than all who came before’ attitude, tends to implode on itself if given time. The Soviet Union only lasted as long as it did because of Christian ethics within the population.
Two Visions For Our Future
Recently, with the decline of Joe Biden and a failed assassination attempt against his rival, the Democrats decided it was time to make a change up top. It is her time now—that is to say Vice President Kamala Harris—and there is plenty that could be said about her career thus far, but there is one peculiar repeat statement she has made that really deserves our attention:
“What can be, unburdened by what has been.”
This strange little mantra has been widely panned by the right. This is more Kamala word salad, they chortle, and yet—while she does sometimes explain things like a school teacher talking to a kindergartener—it is not gibberish. This is something Harris has apparently put some thought into and is something with a meaning that we should try to unpack.
What does it really mean to be unburdened by what has been?
I’m not going to sinisterize.
Most on the left I know have a glowing hope for the future and could never imagine that their philosophy could lead to Gulags. I do not believe Harris intends it this way, but it does hint heavily of Marxist thought where we are to be liberated or emancipated from all that came before. On the surface, this is an inviting thought. Imagine a world with no abuse, no poor, everyone has their needs provided and has complete freedom. This would be wonderful—and this is what every cookie-cutter college leftist has in mind as the end product of their efforts.
So how does the unburdening begin? Well, it already has. If you have been paying a bit of attention, everything normal is now being called fascist. Believe that women exist as a category and isn’t something a man can ‘transition’ to? Fascist! Maybe you like the nuclear family and see it as a praiseworthy social convention? Fascist! How about a border where there is reasonable control over who is allowed in and who is kept out? That makes you literally Hitler! And Harris has embraced this side of the debate, she announced her pronouns and the nature of her politics.
None of this is to say that Harris is a terrible person. I simply don’t want a leader unbound to existing ethics or any standard of decency, or who can write off Constitutional law as being a “what has been” product of wealthy white men with some of them slave owners and thus should be discarded. Sure, it may be a document with flaws, and could possibly use more amendments too, but it is better than nothing and represents the will of the people who signed onto this national project to this very day—white, black, Native, or immigrant alike.
What was established is for our benefit. It is no more a burden than a wool coat in the blistering cold. To think that we know more than every other generation that came before us, that science and technology have made us into gods, is delusional.
Furthermore, the left’s unboundness means they do not care about precedents (except as a tool to restrict their rule-obeying opponents and the ends justify the means. And they mean well. They plan to fight injustice. But this script has played out many times before and is the very thing that tradition is a bulwark against. At the very least those who believe what “has been” has value will hesitate and consider before they destroy the foundations of civilization.
Make America Great Again
Donald Trump rolled out his red hats and MAGA slogan in his 2016 campaign. The message was simple, a repeat of Ronald Reagan’s “Let’s make America great again” encouraging answer to the total economic disaster of the Carter years. As he said, in the 1980 Republican convention:
For those without job opportunities, we’ll stimulate new opportunities, particularly in the inner cities where they live. For those who’ve abandoned hope, we’ll restore hope and we’ll welcome them into a great national crusade to make America great again.
Trump knows a good brand and borrowed it from the best Republican leader since a guy named Abraham Lincoln. The progressives lost their minds. They dug up the one time it was used by the KKK. And couldn’t decide to condemn with “America was never great” or be offended because “America is already great and how dare Trump suggest anything otherwise!” If you were playing a game of “wrong answers only” this harsh criticism of MAGA as white supremacy would make a bit of sense.
MAGA is not hateful.
When the left says, “Do you know who else said make America great again?” and then goes on to associate this benign statement with all manner of evil, they’re poisoning the well. There is zero reason to interpret this slogan as Trump’s desire to bring back Jim Crow or the racial policies that were once championed by Democrats. But this does whip the left into a frenzy and it keeps them from deviating and making an independent decision whom to vote for based on the actual positions of candidates.
What does Trump mean by “make America great again”?
Trump is a businessman, his interests are mostly economic, rebuilding our industrial base, bringing back gainful employment for blue-collar workers lower taxes, and less red tape standing in the way of entrepreneurial spirit. My wife, who opened a store in her home country, complains that the US is not a free country and is appalled by the many layers of taxes and requirements. This is what dooms many to working for “the man” or corporations that can afford compliance costs while drowning their competitors with cheap imported foreign goods.
The legalism of US law would make a Pharisee uncomfortable.
Jobs can stop leaving our country, and start pouring in. Failing schools can become flourishing schools. Crumbling roads and bridges can become gleaming new infrastructure. Inner cities can experience a flood of new jobs and investment. And rising crime can give way to safe and prosperous communities.
Had Trump’s first term not been sabotaged by COVID and blue state shutdowns, there is no doubt this would have been fulfilled. In fact, by the third year of his presidency the minority unemployment rate reached record lows. Even NPR, while downplaying it, could not deny these numbers Trump touted were real. Biden’s only success comes from not rolling back those tariffs the fear-mongering media had so roundly criticized. It is strange how the success and failure of policies is determined only by who is employing them, isn’t it?
No, Trump’s not woke. He believes in hiring based on qualifications. He doesn’t want to continue world policing and the massive expansion of government programs. This is why he is the enemy of those who derive all of their power from the administrative state and sap our resources. He is keenly aware that a free flow of cheap labor, while it helps elites who want nannies and landscaping at a discount, pulls down wages for those who do not come from wealth. Even a Senator named Barack Obama understood this:
If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole—especially by keeping our workforce young, in contrast to an increasingly geriatric Europe and Japan—it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net.
Make America Great Again is not about a swerve in the direction of Nazism or some new form of ethno-nationalism. It is about restoring the economic conditions that had allowed our grandparents to buy their home and a car on a single income. Back in 2015, Bernie Sanders had blamed open borders on a right-wing conspiracy, that will make everyone poorer, but now the left is saying that normal border security is racist. What changed? Why are these Democrat policies, like the immigrant cages during the Obama administration, demonized under Trump?
Compassion means disincentivizing illegal crossings where human trafficking is a concern requiring sorting facilities.
It is really disorienting for those who soak propaganda like a sponge. They never see that Democrats did this full 180 on multiple issues where they had been right. Trump is right about the border. It should be the top priority. Just the Fentanyl overdoses alone are a reason. I’ve lost a former high school classmate and football teammate this way— 83,000 Americans died in 2022 alone—and it had ironically played as much role in the death of George Floyd as a knee on his shoulder. Why do we even talk about that dozen killed in a school shooting or Ukraine in light of this?
Reform, Not Revolution
Progressives tear at the fabric of civilization without understanding the consequences of their actions. They believe that the erasure of history, destruction of monuments, or the degrading of religion (see Paris Olympics) is a path to a better future. But this amounts to cultural vandalism and is ignorance of the positive contribution of these religiously created values we’ve internalized. There is truly nothing that is written on the substrate of the universe that says slavery is wrong or that genocide is evil—the stopping point to “unburdened by what has been” is a return to animalistic impulse.
By design, not accident.
The frontal lobe of the brain is developed by the myths and moralities that progressives do everything in their power to destroy with ridicule and sacrilege. And it will inevitably go much further than anticipated. We rarely have enough appreciation for what we have been given. Everything is taken for granted until it is gone. And when there is a vacuum that is left to fill, and the ‘demons’ waiting in the wings will come rushing in:
When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation. (Matthew 12:43-45 NIV)
Christianity led to equal rights in the West, the abolition movement, is a product of St Paul advocating for Onesimus or telling the Galatian church, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The left assumes the values it has are universal. They see only the faults without giving credit.
“You will not surely die!”
The progressive left, by contrast, denies all limits and conventions. Their “can be” may seem good at first glance. But is opening Pandora’s box, it is releasing what previous generations have built social structures to contain and could end up being more like a trip on Event Horizon. America has been good and bad, had moments of greatness and failure. We should tune the ideal it was founded on, not tear it down to start all over again. There is much to conserve in “what is” with an eye to improvement. Veer not too far to the right or left.
At least with Trump, morally corrupt as he may be, he comprehends that our inheritance is not a burden. For him, there is something that can be recovered “again” from the past generations even if those lessons were not perfectly applied to him. He’s a grandpa, he has seen trends come and go, old enough not to care about what is currently popular. Trump may have some narcissistic traits, at least that is the character he plays on television to the roar of the WWE crowd—but he isn’t trying to be God.
The book of Ezra is difficult to read. It ends with God’s prophet breaking up marriages between Israelite men and foreign women, leaving these wives abandoned, with their children, without once considering their welfare. Not only is it cold and callused, but all this talk of the impurity of these people is also disturbingly like that of the ethnonationalist rhetoric leading to genocide in modern times.
My own mixed family has encountered some difficulties with those who put their own tribe first recently at work and school.
My son, a very friendly and outgoing kid, has had some issues with a few bullies. One of these adversaries slapped him hard on the side of his head at the bus stop. Eventually, my son and this attacker had an all-out brawl on the sidewalk and my son says he got the upper hand before an adult intervened. But now my son is afraid of being the victim of another surprise attack and feels very much alone against the group. Which is the worst part, the one who is instigating the violence, telling other kids that my son insulted them or otherwise provoked, is himself a newly arrived racial minority—albeit from a much less friendly urban culture.
My wife recently started a new job at a local meat packing facility, staffed primarily by those from Spanish-speaking countries, and faces a similar uphill battle. They preferred their own for promotions and sabotaged the work of another Filipino who took one of these better-paid positions. The upper management is seemingly unaware of this dynamic, perhaps seeing all ethnic minorities as the same, but it is very real to those who directly encounter it and see the discrimination first-hand. It really is not ‘people of color’ versus white as is the binary often presented. No, there are local majorities, and also many rivalries that are within racial minorities.
Something my wife observed early on is that you need to know someone to get a job. As it turns out, that is true, she had applied at her current employer and never heard from them in weeks. Finally, she found out that a fellow Filipino worked there, reached out, got a recommendation, and a few days after this she was interviewed. Her ethnic contingent, within the company, has increased to three as they also have convinced another to join them against Hispanics.
My ideal solution to my son’s situation would be for him to have an older sibling or cousin to help him. It is just automatic that family will look out for family and yet this dynamic does not contradict the sad reality of the rest of this post. There is a fine line between this preference for our own blood and racial discrimination and bullying behavior. In fact, it is basically the same thing. We prefer our genetic division and general ethnic category to others. And this may be why the older Asian girl on the bus takes a little more interest in my son? Instincts may cause her to treat him like she may a little brother. At the very least his polite and respectful behavior is common across most Asian cultures.
Discrimination is a survival mechanism. An individual who truly treated everyone exactly the same would soon find themselves to be depleted of resources. Without a tribe or a gang, nobody is strong enough to stand up to the bullies in the real world. You’re either in the dominant (physically superior and better organized) group or you’ll be harassed into serving it. Even the legendary heroes of ancient times tended to have an army to back them up. And outward appearance is simply the easiest way to align ourselves given that this was always a natural division of people across time.
This all starts at a very young age. At only three months old babies will start to prefer faces of their own race to others. This idea that children need to be taught to be racists has no basis in science. Yes, conditioning and socialization will come into play, but this is only a sharping of inborn tendencies. We will trust those who look like us over those who are foreigners. This can metastasize into racist ideologies and the hatred of those ‘impure’ others. But it is not unnatural.
Inhuman Nature and the Alternative
Defenders of Biblical ethno-nationalism will say that the problem was more about these people being idol worshippers. And yet the people of Israel certainly weren’t free of this and they themselves would frequently follow after these false gods. Why weren’t these impurities abandoned? Ezra gave them an opportunity to repent and remain part of the group despite this disobedience. They, as the seed of Abraham, were given preferential treatment simply for their bloodline and not only as a result of their different behavior.
Being truly human is about going beyond the primal and transcending even ourselves. No, we may never convince all to find a common bond beyond the lowest hanging fruit that is skin color or facial features. Still, those I’ve been able to identify with the most, at least other than siblings or biological cousins, do not belong to my own race.
My wife and I started as geographically far apart as two people could possibly be on this planet. Her people, Igorots, were very tribal and primitive up until a half-century ago, my own Swiss-German heritage may seem the opposite. But her rural agrarian roots make her more similar to me than one may assume. Her people are stoic, with a strong work ethic, and are very much like my own grandparents. Our son, to whom I am a step-father, is completely different than me in terms of his athleticism compared to my own clumsiness. Still, we do share many interests and are peas in a pod.
Unnatural love is that which is extended to those who do not look like us. It is to try to be fair to all people, of all races, rather than show favoritism. It starts with simply not mistreating those who are different from us and trying to find the humanity in others. It is to put our common values and aims at a higher level of importance than appearance, which is to say seeing the heart rather than outward appearance.
This is not ‘diversity is our strength’ or some kind of woke BS either.
The left is as divisive as the right or worse. They hold everyone to a different standard, based on their outward appearance, and call this inclusion. But all they really do is replace a meritocracy with a victim hierarchy and then use past injustice as an excuse to do the same thing to others today. Actual virtue or contribution does not matter in this ideological dogma, it is always about outward appearance. The bully is of another color and the discrimination goes in a new direction, but it is just more division by the lowest common denominator.
Common values are our strength. Working towards the same cultural and civilizational goals, rather than only what is good for our own ethnic identity group, is where diversity of abilities is useful. Bullies cost us resources, discrimination for reasons other than good or behavior is unjust, and being totally colorblind may be impossible. However, we can work to correct our own prejudice and towards a common goal. It will take some faith and leading by example, it will a change of heart from the current paradigm:
“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 NIV)
It is that, unity in Christ, or we revert back to the ethnic wars, cleansings, disregard, and other abuses of the Old Testament. We can live in a world where it is tribe against tribe, man against woman, and soon every man for themselves, or we can find ways to overcome our differences and see our better potential realized. We’ll never be completely fair, favoritism is natural, but we can aim for it. We don’t need to slaughter each other over our shades of difference.
Of the many issues that are defined by false dichotomies one of them is most glaring and that is who bears responsibility for lust. It is very clear that Jesus makes us responsible for our own wandering eyes:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
(Matthew 5:27-30 NIV)
This is the ultimate case for taking personal responsibility and why I don’t buy it when men try to blame women for their lust or claim immodesty caused sexual assault. If poverty is not an excuse for looting or theft from those with something desirable, why would a victim of rape be considered even partly responsible for what was done to them?
If people can blame-shift for one behavior they can for all.
There’s always an excuse for aggression and yet Jesus says that we are responsible for even managing our temptations.
Is she responsible for male lust?
It makes sense. In a world full of advertising telling us to consume, moderation depends on our learning self-control. McDonald’s did not make you fat. No, your choice to bend to the urge to grab yet another Big Mac, on the way home, did that. Ultimately, A truly moral person learns how to avoid stumbling blocks and would sooner remove their own eyes than make excuses.
So where is the false dichotomy?
Well, while we can’t blame fast food restaurants for obesity, we have recognized that advertising does influence decisions. Marketing would not be an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars if this were not the case. For this reason it is worth being aware and acknowledging reality, it is our responsibility not to lust and it is also just smart to recognize the power our physical bodies have over others.
The Two-way Street…
People love to display their bodies for the attention and recognition it brings. We have body building competitions and beauty pageants for this reason. Our bodies are beautiful, like great art, and especially attractive to our sexual opposites.
But then it seems only young women complain loudly when that “creeper” takes notice of them in a cleavage baring skin tight outfit, as if they aren’t posting pictures of themselves in the same outfit for the world to see on social media, and that’s just plain meanspirited. So maybe they are just seeking more attention by bashing older and physically unattractive men? I mean, come on, do they really not know that their exposed bodies are not a magnet for the male gaze?
Some want to have it both ways: They want the positive attention that their bodies bring them and then become angry about being objectified by men. It is as dumb as a sugar daddy being upset about the “gold diggers” when he was the one flaunting his wealth as a way of gaining access to women. If you truly want other people to value you for your personality then make that the centerpiece by being modest about your other ‘assets’ and also seeking others on the same basis rather than being superficial.
The response to overbearing purity culture, where women are wrongly blamed for male struggle, is to deny biological reality and that being sexual attraction. That is to say this ridiculous notion that a person can wear the most revealing and provocative clothing then be upset when they’re objectified. It would be like me claiming that I can walk into a gay bar, wearing hot pants and a tank top, then claim I wasn’t inviting attention.
Modesty is not about preventing others from lusting so much as it is about not advertising what we’re not willing to give to all. If I don’t want anyone to stare or appreciate my Shelby GT-350, I’ll keep it under a cover in the garage and never take it out on the street. Our bodies are an object, they are the most wonderful of physical things, and to appreciate this is not a matter of lust or sin. We should not be offended when people take notice of what we have very publicly displayed.
Finding the Balance…
Jesus said what he did about responsibility for lust as an instruction to those who are trying to be moral.
What he did not do is contradict what others in Scripture told us about being modest nor did he recommend making a big display of our various valuable assets for all to see.
While it is not my fault if my car gets stolen and, indeed, it could happen anywhere—I still understand that the streets of some Baltimore slums are not the place to park my new car with the keys in the ignition.
Don’t park your C8 Corvette in Detroit
What this does not mean is that immodesty is an excuse for sexual assault.
Without exception, all cases of lustfulness and sexual abuse are wholly the responsibility of those who are commiting the immoral act. But we should understand that 1) our bodies (albeit sacred) are a desirable object and 2) there are many evil and immoral people willing to take advantage of the unwise. Being an adult means understanding that the world does not always live up to our own ideal we must therefore take reasonable precautions.
Sure, we can curse gravity when we get stumble-down-the-stairs-drunk yet it makes more sense to acknowledge the reality and avoid known risks. For example, wearing a skirt that only leaves the last little bit to the imagination, then going to a frat house party and getting totally wasted, is obviously risky behavior. By denying contributing factors we are, at some point, the enablers of negative outcomes. We should teach our children to protect themselves by being aware of enter-at-your-own-risk situations.
It is why my wife has warned me against talking too openly about my many fanciful dreams in her home country: Although my ambitions are far bigger than my wallet. Some people hearing may misunderstand—think that I’m incredibly wealthy—and this would potentially make me or my family a target for crime. I could complain about this, claim that I should be free to express myself as I please, but that won’t save me from a kidnapping or being murdered.
To be clear, many (if not most) cases of rape and sexual assault have absolutely nothing to do with what the victim wore or where they were. It was a relative or someone they knew who took advantage of their trust and they really could not have done anything better. And, again, even if the victim was ‘immodesty’ dressed, they did not cause the aggression inflicted upon them. If we don’t tell people who were carjacked that they should have left their car in the garage, why would we ever tell a girl that her exposed legs caused an assault?
My point is simply that bad people do exist and aren’t deterred by a lecture about respecting other people or their property and bodies. We know not to put our valuables on display in a seedy neighborhood—it’s just unwise.
Appreciate the Good…
Many who rejected patriarchalism are more the embodiment of the very toxic attitudes that they claim to oppose than those whom they accuse.
As the saying goes, “When you point a finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you,” we should be careful in our zealousness for a cause not to fall into our own delusion.
Or as Jesus taught:
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
(Matthew 7:3-5 NIV)
Browbeating moral men about “rape culture” is no better than religious fundamentalists who constantly guilt-trip conscientious and modest women about male lusts.
Good men don’t…is this a controversy?
The vast majority of men are not rapists nor is someone a “rape apologist” for stating the truth about sexual attraction and additional risks for women. The fact is that there are bad people in the world, willing to exploit the vulnerable if allowed, and that is why we put locks on our doors. Clothing is just one of many layers of defense and also a way to keep the focus on something other than our bodies.
We take for granted the religious laws against rape, theft or murder, as if such things are written into the substrate of the universe, but the reality is that this is order built upon moral men who use their strength to protect rather than exploit. It is truly only under the protective umbrella of civilization that a person can expect to walk around (without the direct protection of their clan) and not be immediately set upon by predators.
We should, therefore, appreciate the good self-controlled men and distinguish between them and the bad.
Thinking, as I’m sipping my coffee at Dunkin, a Saturday habit, we build civilization as part of the urge to reduce variables and the effort of living. The thought started during my pre-waking slumber: We work, build shelters and store resources, create complex networks, to try to decrease unpredictability and the end result is that I don’t need to worry about my source of caffeine.
This orderly environment we create is ideal for raising children. It is a nest. Or at least at some levels. Where we, like birds, weave a structure out of chaos in order to keep our offspring safe from predators and ourselves protected a world that can be unkind to the unprepared. Squirrels scurry around, in the fall, gathering up things to keep for food over the hard winter months. Our own species, likewise, is as instinctively forward thinking and creates systems to ease the strain.
The human endeavor, towards these ends of producing stability and abundance, has been so successful that many can go their entire lives not appreciating it.
We’re so well-off, in the developed world, that our impoverished are obese rather than hungry and many now think that healthcare (a service provided by others) is a right. we live in such unprecedented luxury and ease, even the poor can afford a lifestyle that many ancient kings would envy and yet feel so entitled to everything that we will shoot up the McDonald’s drive thru if we can’t get our bacon:
Evidently, being in civilization doesn’t make someone civilized.
Anyhow, other than entitlement and lack of appreciation, another product of civilization is boredom and fat. In the absence of wars we created sport and without hard work, to keep from physical deterioration, we go to the gym. It is truly bizarre, when you think about it, that we go out and seek the very anxieties that our ancestors built civilization to escape. We are adrenaline junkies, doing intentionally dangerous things for the fix, we want to have unpredictable outcomes.
All of this really does make everything about our existence a weird paradox. As soon we achieve a little bit of stability and peace we become restless. That’s what convinces me that we are as much nature, made for the world we are in, as we are not. That feeling that we somehow do not belong in this place with death and sorrow is what has motivated our progress. It is less about our own being otherworldly and more what has enabled us to survive this universe that would kill us the moment we grew complacent.
This, incidentally, is the one thing that many people do not grasp about entropy, we tend to see decay and deterioration as being only a bad thing. I mean, we fight it. If someone walks into the house with muddy boots it is upsetting and spurs action. But, without this tendency to disorder, without this repeated need to clean up on aisle five, would we even have a reason to live? As much as we hate disorder, it is this continual struggle against it that gives us meaning and purpose.
Want to say “does not respond well to authority” without saying it? Just post a meme proclaiming yourself as a lion and decrying others as sheeple. Of course, the popular origin of this lion meme was a Trump retweet of the quote, “It is better to live a day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.” The irony being that these ‘lions’ who have used the phrase since are still following someone’s lead.
The reality is, even in this current age of individualism, we are social creatures and are more often responding to the pressure of the crowd than thinking for ourselves. The ideas that motivate us, the narratives and interpretive overlays that we embrace, these aren’t things that we created in our own minds. But rather we have inherited many base assumptions from our homes or communities and will continue to be influenced our entire life.
And, speaking of influence, there was a review of Downfall, a movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler, that got me thinking about leadership. For obvious reasons, this is viewed from a negative light in regard to the Nazi dictator. The faith of the German people in their government is what enabled the atrocities of the regime. Viewing a flawed human being (or any collection of human authorities) as God is something very dangerous.
I’ve written frequently warning against the mob spirit and peer pressure. We should learn how to think for ourselves, make our own decisions, or we may be swept up in the latest propaganda campaign and used for immoral ends.
However, I also had to think that this unique ability of humans to organize around one charismatic personality is also the strength of our species and has given us a great competitive advantage over the strongest individuals. Our hunter-gather ancestors were only able to take down larger animals for food or to protect the themselves from deadly predators by working together. This took leadership, it required someone to be the point man of the group or coordinator of the collective effort.
So, sure, as the video says, “those full of doubts are desperate to follow those who are sure of themselves,” and “view them as shortcuts to prosperity,” yet this urge to fall in behind the Alpha is not always such a bad thing and is actually key to our success in building civilizations. A great leader can empower and get more from the group than the sum of the individual parts. I see this in John, the co-owner and true boss man at my company, without his infectious ambition and decisive confidence I can’t see us being near where we are.
The truth is that there are extraordinary men, there are those who do better embody the collective hopes of their people and thus are granted a right to rule. One only needs to consider the story of David, a lowly shepherd boy, who faced down the giant Goliath and through his courage inspired the armies of Israel to defeat the Philistines. Of course, this is not only a role for men either, the confidence of Deborah (Judges 4) or faithful example of Joan of Arc is what led to the decisive victories of their people over occupiers and oppressors.
People Need Leadership, Not Lords
We can talk about the ideal and imagine a world where everyone is completely able to take initiative, where order is always 100% voluntary and there is no need of authority or a leadership position. That is the design of the Israelite tribes before they demanded a king to rule over them. But even then, in that sort of anarchist system, there were judges that were appointed by Moses to arbitrate disputes and Moses, for his Divine call and standing up to Pharaoh, was the defacto leader of his people.
Every human is flawed. Moses fled into the wilderness after killing an Egyptian and, despite hearing from God, needed Aaron to speak for him. King David, the great warrior leader he was, had a loyal companion, Uriah sent to die in battle in order to cover for his adultery with Bathsheba. The temptation of every person given power over other people is to use it to their own personal advantage rather than for the good of the group. That is why the children of Israel were given this stern warning before appointing a ruler:
Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”
(1 Samuel 8:10-20 NIV)
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
We don’t have kings today, but we do have an all-powerful political class, that is mostly exempted from the laws they apply to us, who never met a new tax they do not like, and always willing to send our children to die to defend their own bloated ego or for the financial gain of the ruling class. Sure, call it ‘democracy’ as you vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledumb, but neither team red nor team blue actually represent you. We’re ruled not even by these visibly elected, but by special interests and those behind the scenes who pull the purse strings.
And therein lies the difference between the good leaders and the bad. The shepherd leader fills the role for the good of the flock, even willing to sacrifice themselves for the life of their sheep. The corrupt leader uses their power and authority as a means to dominate those who are under them. A good leader serves as an example, they encourage and try to get the best out of those looking to them for guidance. The evil politician, on the other hand, delights in creating dependency and keeping others subject to their whims.
In the end, no man is actually worthy to lead of their own authority and it is only through understanding our own place before God, that we ourselves are not God, that we can ever fill the role. Self-belief and narcissism, with a little psychopathy, is often what will get a person to the top spot. But humility and faith, valuing all individuals enough to go find the one lost sheep, that is the mark of a Godly leader. The only person fit to lead is one who is willing to submit to those who have authority over them.
The delusion of the Protestant independent spirit is that every man (or woman) and their Bible becomes their own king. This “you’re not the boss of me” attitude, in response to flawed leadership or simply as rebellion, is precisely why the church is becoming increasingly impotent. The Church, at least the one that Christ founded, had those given the authority to bind and loose, a council to decide important matters and those who acted as fathers. This hierarchy was never comprised of those faultless. No, what made them worthy, and the only thing that makes any of us worthy, is being clothed in the righteousness of the one Great Shepherd.
We need sheep who know they are sheep and shepherds, appointed to feed the flocks, like Peter:
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.
(John 21:15-17 NIV)
In my own spiritual journey, after my own Bible-based authority failed me, God provided me with a man who would end his emails with the phrase “your unworthy priest” and is truly that. Fr Anthony is a very well-educated man, a college professor, and one who could easily flaunt his credentials as a means to humiliate some like me. But what has given him true authority, in my eyes, is how he humbly serves as a true example of Christian leadership.
He is a shepherd and the Church really needs more who are like him.
There are many desperately trying to push back against the march of progress. I’ve seen the Ted Kaczynski’s (aka “the Unibomber”) Manifesto popping up lately because of how his predictions are coming true. Even those at the cutting edge of the current technological revolution, men like Elon Musk, are terrified of the implications of this rapid change.
Things like transhumanism, cashless society, social credit scores, next level automation and artificial intelligence are upon us. The internet, this once free space, that reduced the friction of communication and allowed the masses to bypass the established gatekeepers of information, is now enabling a new generation of tyrants with power that their predecessors couldn’t have even begun to imagine.
There is a feeling of helplessness against this faceless emerging (and present) threat, we know that they work behind the scenes to control the narrative. The NSA, Big Tech corporations, existing institutions, they’re all competing for their place at the top of this new order, often colluding and conspiring when their goals align. To them we’re ants, pawns to be manipulated and moved.
It is inevitable. Removing a few key players may be a speed bump. However, nothing short of an asteroid hitting the planet and mass extinction will stop this transition. To resist is to be like the Luddites who thought destroying a few industrial looms would preserve their trade. Their movement was destined to be steamrolled by the invisible hand of market realities. It would be easier to stop a freight train by standing in it’s path than to stop this.
That is what the conspiracy theorists and end time prognosticators get most wrong, they see this wind of change as being directed by a particular group of people, a few elites and celebrities, when it is truly a spirit of our time that even they themselves are participating in. I mean, how many posts do you need to read on Facebook decrying what it does to hijack our minds before the universe explodes because of the massive irony? We can’t help ourselves.
Even the Amish, who are way ahead of the curve as far as identifying the social danger of technology, cannot resist that sirens song and love their smart phones as much as anyone else. And they’re the experts at banning technology they’ve decided is bad for their communities and way of life. If they cannot collectively stop this influence, with their strong religious tradition, what chance do we have to hold back this flood of change?
Still some delude themselves, they believe they’re going to run into the hills and escape this onslaught. I’m thinking of the Rod Dreher types who believe that they will somehow be able to remove themselves, this isn’t the Eastern Roman Empire we’re dealing with. There is no place to hide, no place on this planet out of reach, maybe you’ll fall through the cracks or fly beneath the radar and yet I doubt it.
What we are seeing is the merger of something extremely old with some brand new means. There have always been those with an insatiable lust for power and control, those like the men of Sodom who believed that they should have access to Lot’s angelic guests. It will never be enough for them to rule their own domain. They will use the new technology to search out anyone who would resist them. They get off on your resistance and now have new tools.
The thing about the Biblical antichrist is that it is first and foremost a spirit. You can’t keep it out by walls or physical distance, we can see the manifestations, but we do not battle against flesh and blood. No, it is a war with isms, systems that deny Christ and put try to order the world without God. This always comes in such a glowing colorful and exciting form, but under this cover it is the same perversion of beauty and love.
The world isn’t ever going back to that of our childhood or parents and grandparents. For better or worse, the only constant in life is change. Yes, the pace now seems greater than ever, we are certainly finding ourselves with fewer places to hide. The surveillance state has never been stronger, privacy is a thing of the past, the new tools we use too complicated for most of us to understand and only give us an illusion of control.
Alas, all the things we face today are new forms of the same evils that have existed from the beginning of civilization. The only difference is that now it is on a global scale, with more sophisticated means and ability for centralized administration. The fake news, propaganda and misinformation is more subtle and convincing than ever. It all comes at us so fast anymore. It is easy to become disillusioned and demoralized, but we can’t let the giants defeat us.
There has always been an ebb and flow, the rise and fall of empires and epochs. The most cunning have always found ways to consolidate power and exercise control over the masses through various means. The times we live in could easily be compared to the “bread and circuses” of the Roman Empire. Now we have Netflix and the welfare state, enough entertainment and ease to keep us subdued. Maybe this is the time when the types who desire complete supremacy finally win?
We must pick our battles. There is probably not much you are going to do against the weight of the wealthiest most calculated and powerful of our time. What will be will be. Freedom and equal rights have pretty much always been a fantasy to keep us from being trouble to the elites. Most of us are slaves via debt. Step out of line, be the slightest threat to their rule, and they’ll put you in your place.
The readers of this Irregular Ideation most likely noticed that I was down and struggling a bit. No doubt the prayers of my family and good friends have been heard. While the neck and other issues linger, there has been a break in the form of some good news that has brought with it that glimmer of hope again.
These cycles of mood and emotional swings have been something that I’ve pondered. Despite there being events that are involved, there is also this sort of rhythm and inevitability to these things. The phase “what goes up must come down” comes to mind. Sure, I’m probably on the more neurotic end of things, with higher highs and lower lows. But most people, no matter how good or bad their life is compares to others, seem able to identify with these ebbs and flows.
I mean, we have that time before coffee in the morning then that time after where the brightest of the world returns. There are those the weekly slow starts “a case of the Mondays” contrast with that euphoria of Fridays. Then the longer cycling patterns tired to holidays or weather. Has anyone else had encounters with SAD or Seasonal Effective Disorder? Descriptions like “terrible twos” or “the midlife crisis” exist for a reason. Is the “sophomore slump” real? I think so.
And there does seem to be a preordained nature to this all, like the seasons or how the sun rises and sets.
This kind of constant change is confirmed in Scripture:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NIV)
To me this is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time. The woman who brought a man such joy in their youth may make him all the more lonely when the season of death and seperation comes. The attributes that make a nation rise in prominence, say a focus on equality, can be the very thing that brings about their collapse once it finally does reach the top.
Not to say that any of this is meted out evenly across board either, some do have it easier or a higher baseline mood and others not as fortunate, nevertheless there are patterns.
Bigger dreams lead to bigger despair. But a harder struggle can also lead to greater joy and a more wonderful triumph for the faithful than those who lived for their own comfort. There is balance, there is growth, larger and smaller patterns, a predictability that seems could be modeled. How it plays out across groups of people is also a fascination of mine.
My own thought is that we could probably remove the triggering events and still end up with the same patterns in the end.
In other words, there would have been a world war even if the Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated, my disenchantment with the Mennonite denomination would have eventually boiled over even if not for the same specific reasons, and Elon Musk’s Twitter account isn’t the reason the crypto market dropped from those all time highs either.
First, Let Me Talk About Stocks…
If cycles of human emotion could be mapped out, the stock market might be the place to start. The euphoria of a “bull” market and seeming endless pessimism of a “bear” market show how our emotions, collectively, shape the direction or mood of the market. But it is more than just random noise, it is a complex dance of feelings and facts, that produces the ‘right’ price in the end. It can often be algorithmically predicted.
A little story, for example, of how it works: I have bought and sold Dogecoin over the past few months. My first purchase, in December, at a cost of $1000 then, would have been worth hundreds of thousands at the peak. I sold it for a small gain. But later, as not to miss out, I bought in again, and saw my portfolio balloon when the “meme coin” finally caught fire. However, over the past few months, things haven’t been too good and the price was going down and down.
At first I had complete resolve. The smart investor holds, I did my due diligence, this is only a correction cycle and things will reverse soon. But eventually the pressure broke me. I decided that it was time to save what was left of my gains and move to something that would produce a better return. I thought this down trend would continue indefinitely or at least go lower—give me a better buy-in price later, right?
I’ll show you where I sold around 80% of my Doge…
Oh well, I think I’ll be able to get more later.
Yup. I picked the very bottom of the downward trend. Even knowing that cryptos have gone through similar corrective phases in the past before continuing their upward climb, and even telling my coworkers that Bitcoin (despite the plunge) would end the year above $70,000, I fell victim to fear, uncertainty and doubt precisely at the wrong time. I had waited for two months to see that trend reversal, at the bottom, and would have gotten it had I held on for another couple more weeks.
But more than to talk about my missed opportunities, I’m interested in that larger cycle of the market and how human emotions (in an aggregate) create this clear pattern. Many people want to blame events, like a Tweet from Elon Musk or what have you, for their change in fortunes. However, while we could see these events as being triggers, it seems the larger patterns are something more or less baked in.
Elon Musk speaks as Doge sells
Dogecoin, for example, could not continue straight up forever. Smart investors, who know the adage, “buy the rumor, sell the news,” started to sell before Musk’s SNL appearance. And the sell-offs came with mentions both good and bad. It was not the autistic billionaire businessman’s fault that so many people decided on that moment to cash in nor that others began to panic sell as the price dipped. It was all predictable, part of some sort of fractal meta-pattern, can be modeled (like this), and would have happened (triggered by something else) regardless.
Smart investors learn to zoom at, look at the longer trend, rather than let the emotions of a bad day get to them. Cryptos, despite their recent dip, have remained in an ascending pattern with the recent lows still higher than the high of the prior cycle, which is why the smart money (unlike your’s truly) continues to buy the dip and HODL (Hold On for Dear Life) rather than give up. Most people miss on big gains because they’re impatient.
Despite Recent Lows, An Upwardly Building Pattern Prevails…
It was after my most recent dip in mood that I realized something. In my prior lows over the years, as a Mennonite, I would still go to church for the fellowship and yet would not sing if the words didn’t feel authentic coming from my mouth.
But this past time, despite my feeling low, I still showed up to sing and did because (despite my pain and depressed mood) someone had to carry my part in the choir. Music was my worship, spiritual combat, rather about how I felt. This time I soldiered through the liturgy, toothache, emotional turmoil, and all. I left immediately after the service, rather than do the social ‘coffee hour’ thing, because I was miserable.
It might seem to be virtuous to only show up or sing when the feelings are there and yet it is hardly sustainable. If I only showed up for my job when I was in the mood or having a good day, my paycheck would be small to nonexistent. Many marriages end in divorce because the ‘love’ therein depends on their feelings in the moment and is not an actual commitment to love through better or worse.
So, in short, this duty-driven devotion, rather than being led by emotions, is actually progress. It was not simply another dive into the same dumps as before. No, I have changed, improved, from the “be true to yourself” advice to doing my job, for the good of others (including my choir director), gutting it out. Two steps forward, one step back, will eventually get you where you need to be.
There is a sense in which it was always a choice whether or not to participate. But my character development? That seems like something guided, the result of years of small nudges in the right direction, and not something that I can take credit for. In other words, I’m becoming what I was meant to be, having been placed in the right time and circumstances.
Despite Individual Progress, Are We Becoming Weaker?
That’s not to say that this kind of building pattern cannot work in reverse. When we consider our “first-world problems” in comparison to what people face in Afghanistan, it would appear that we are becoming collectively weaker rather than use the past generations boost. We use our opportunity to “stand on the shoulders of giants” to bellyache about ‘oppression’ because other people are not forced to pay for our lifestyle choices.
To put things into perspective?
Charlotte, my Igorot bhest, as the daughter of a subsistence farmer in the mountainous Benguet province, was sent away to assist her grandmother. She describes her childhood as being her “grandma’s water pump,” carrying heavy buckets to keep the garden watered. The work was so hard that she would cry and wonder why she was even born. That’s pretty much how my grandparents or great-grandparents lived, they did complain and probably because there was nobody to listen. Everyone struggled, physically, and became strong enough to survive.
Not Charlotte. But how many in the world work.
Compare that to my generation, where we were mostly spared hard physical labor, yet find plenty of reason to cry injustice. We have gone from “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me,” to triggered because an Amish kid stares at us. Being looked at too long a micro-aggression, I’ve heard. My own endless existential crisis another example and there are many other cases, in my generation, of oversensitive and dark struggles of those truly privileged compared to their hardworking parents.
While past generations in my religious upbringing may blame their insecurities on the standards and not being appreciated by their workaholic father or whatever, the latest generation can’t even eat peanut butter without breaking into hives. It isn’t their fault either, they’ve been coddled and protected from birth, their parents worked overtime to make sure that they felt heard and connected. Now, rather than see their discontentment coming from having to follow ‘legalistic’ church standards, our youth will struggle with questions of whether or not they’ve somehow been mis-gendered at birth.
There is little doubt that our sterile environment is likely contributing to the vast increase in autoimmune disorders and allergies. Whereas previous generations fell to disease, endured actual physical hardship and wondering where the next meal would come from, girls married as teenagers, we now have people distressed that someone used the ‘wrong’ pronoun…
However, in a sense, over the generations it is the same struggle in different form. No matter how improved things become, whether we get that go cart we dreamed about every day or not, there will always be another circumstance to blame our own feelings of not belonging on. The more challenges we remove for our children, the less capable they become. No longer comfortable in their own skin. We blame different externalities for our despair, yet maybe it is something genetic, internal and inevitable?
How Civilizations Rise And Fall
There have been various descriptions of how civilizations rise and fall, one example below:
Many Americans see that we’re on the decline and that our fall from world prominence is now as inevitable as the sun going down. And, given that many great empires have come and gone, this is not a big surprise. How could a nation of immigrants, people who left the oppression of the old world, traveled across the treacherous Atlantic and conquered a continent, who understood sacrifice, lead to a generation so entitled, unappreciative, self-loathing and suicidal?
It is easy to paint a very bleak picture. But then, gripes about the next generation are as old as human civilization and this doesn’t always mean a collapse is imminent. Yes, there is change. Top hats have gone out of fashion and will likely never make a return, trends come and go. There have been times of great social upheaval, like the American Civil War, followed by periods of relative calm. Those who lived through the Great Depression, the World Wars or Cold War all had their anxieties about the end being near, only for that “great peace” and fall of the Soviet Union to follow.
What feels like the end, under fresh leadership, could be the start of a new epoch. Take the fall of Rome. Sure, the Mediterranean empire fragmented, yet the common thread of Western civilization has remained to this day and is arguably stronger than ever. Yeah, the British Empire may no longer rule the seas, but their rebellious American sons and daughters have become even more powerful than any empire ever. So maybe after a painful declining corrective phase there will be a revival or rebirth?
Our survival depends on our optimism. We must assume that each pullback will lead to the next increase in amplitude. No, that doesn’t mean this is easy, doubt and despair require far less effort than hope and faith; failure is always possible even with the best efforts, but humanity has made it through many bad moments—moments many times worse than any of us will likely experience in our own lifetimes.
Irregular Ideation 