Happiness – Page 8 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Burning Your Way To Happiness

“No! Look, what’s the matter with you all? It’s perfectly simple: We have the fire drill when I ring the fire bell. That wasn’t the fire bell! Right?” – Fawlty Towers

At the pub, the owner told me I was drunk and needed to take the bus home. Turned out those are even harder to drive when you’re drunk.

It was a cold, February campout. It was also rainy, and also weather that most folks would call miserable. In fact, it was also the first campout that I was Scoutmaster.

I think the temperature, at its highest, was probably around 45°F. It froze at night. We put our tents up in the dark, and I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag.

The next morning, we had breakfast. One thing that I had changed since I became Scoutmaster was that the Scouts bought, cooked, and ate their own food. One thing I observed on previous campouts was when the kids and adults ate the same food, the adults wanted good food, and wouldn’t leave the kids alone. Me? I had no desire to eat chicken tartare, so I let the kids fix their own food, and I often cooked for the adult leaders.

I drew a picture of a criminal once. He looked pretty sketchy.

The plan for the day was fairly simple. 80% or more of the Scouts needed to get to First Class (a rank where a boy would know most of the things so they could survive a solo campout for a few days, if need be). We focused on First Class skills. One other thing I instituted is that the older Scouts were to teach the younger Scouts, for reasons that are probably obvious.

My job, mainly, was to drink coffee and take someone to the hospital if the hatchet got the best of them. At this campout, there was one Scout in particular who had very little skill at anything. One of the Scouts of higher rank ran him through building a fire.

Jack London aside, building a fire after a rainy night on a blustery, rainy day isn’t the easiest of things. And, to be fair, this Scout wasn’t the quickest on the uptake. But he worked at starting his fire for a really long time. More than an hour? Certainly. But he had dogged determination, and finally got his fire going.

“Okay,” I said, “You can put that one out now. That qualifies.”

“No, I want to keep it going.”

I hear arsonists do well on Tinder®. They have a lot of matches.

I was fine with that. It was his fire, and if he wanted to keep it going, I was fine with that. There was little chance of him burning down the soggy campground.

He kept the fire going through the night, feeding it, and teasing it along.

He made First Class, but I must point out, by the time he got the rank badge it wasn’t nearly as important to him as building that fire. He had acquired a skill. He could do more than he could before. He did not need outside validation. The achievement was part of him. He was proud of himself.

So often, we get tied up in feeling about things that are beyond our span of control. Marcus Aurelius wrote, “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.”

I hear that Marcus Aurelius got the first weather report. “Hail, Caesar!”

I know that we are living in a world filled with tough situations. I would say this, if some outside event upsets you, go ahead and be upset. Until midnight.

Then, take control. Realize that what you can be and do is the important thing. As that Scout taught me, being fulfilled isn’t being surrounded by supermodels and driving a Lambo® while they softly nuzzle your neck and . . . where was I? No, that’s not fulfillment. Fulfillment is achievement.

Almost every single person reading this has the power to be better tomorrow at something. A skill. Bench pressing five more pounds. Learning Shakespeare in the original Klingon. Becoming a better carpenter. Finally trimming those nosehairs, or at least weaving them into an attractive scarf.

Me? I write, and try to get better. When I’ve written what I want, I don’t need anyone to tell me – I feel it inside.

And I’m okay.

Except in especially tragic situations, it is in our power to be better. It is in our power to improve. And through doing so, it is in our power to build internal strength. And we don’t need anyone to validate it.

Life is tough, and it’s even tougher when we try to take on every injustice in the world. Sometimes we just need to take a few minutes, and build a fire.

When You Need A Friend . . .

“Dayman. Champion of the sun. Ahh-ahh-ahh. You’re a master of karate and friendship for everyone! Dayman.” – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The Earth is covered over 80% by water, and most of it is not carbonated. The Earth is flat.

On a recent version of his podcast, Scott Adams said (I’m paraphrasing because I’m too lazy to look it up), “I’m giving it one year. Not two. I’m not going to live another year like this.”

Wow. I did hear that (in a later podcast) he reported that he changed his blood pressure medication and his mood improved, but am likewise too lazy to verify that, either.

To be fair, Scott has had a pretty bad year. He’s had health issues, relationship issues. How bad were they? At one point in his podcast this spring, he melted down and tore into a viewer in a greatly disproportionate way. It was like using a chainsaw to trim toenails. Sure, it’ll do the work, but it will leave quite a mess.

This was the big sign to me that Adams was under a lot of pressure.

After hearing me sing, the choir director told me I was a natural tenor. “Yes, John, stay ten or twelve feet away from a microphone.”

The point isn’t to diagnose Scott’s health or love life, but rather to point out that regardless of wealth (Adams is loaded) and options in life (he could live anywhere in the world he wants to, drive whatever car he wants to, and never worry about a bill ever again in his life), there is the possibility that someone you know needs a friend. Scott certainly does.

One of the things that we have seen decline over the past few decades are those institutions in society that were devoted to fraternity – the Elks, Masons, Moose Lodge, bowling leagues, Boy Scouts® etc., have all seen membership declines – some so much that they’ve folded up in many locations.

And in our club we eat the same thing for breakfast: Synonym Toast Crunch.

Over a decade ago, I was involved with Scouting™. We would have leader meetings, which I ran. I had an agenda, and we’d go through it in a rather business-like fashion. At the end of one of the meetings, another leader, Chuck, pulled out his new cell phone and was showing me its features.

After the meeting, as The Mrs. (she was a leader, too) and I got into the car, I said, “That was weird, Chuck showing me his phone after the meeting. Why do you think he did that?”

The Mrs. looked at me as one would look at a not-so-bright child, and said, slowly so my dim brain could comprehend . . . “Because . . . he’s your,” long pause, and then “friend.” She said friend slowly enough that it was about two seconds in length.

My friend asked if I could sleep with someone dead or alive, who would it be? I answered, “Obviously, someone alive.”

Of course, she was right. I had been so focused on the “business” side of running the Cub Scout stuff that I had forgotten entirely about the personal side. Chuck was my friend. Duh. But the lesson I learned was simple: friends really are out there. Chuck moved away, but I still call him once a year. And I do my best to stay in contact with friends that, in some cases, I haven’t seen physically in 15 years.

That network of friends is important, at least for me. While some people might go through life alone and do fine, I find that having a good network of friends helps me. I can get good advice. I can complain. I can share my journey. I can get good ideas. I can laugh. I can share my troubles.

I don’t go through life alone, and I’m stronger for it.

One of the joys of childhood was how easy it was to make friends. In many cases, we didn’t have anything in common but being the same age, but that was enough. Something about endless summers and going through similar difficulties was great for bonding.

I then started a camp to train kids needlework. It was sew in tents.

I think technology has had a big role in our current dislocation. Our televisions can now bring us nearly every movie from the last twenty years at a touch. YouTube™ has millions of videos on almost every topic. And don’t forget that friendship requires trust, something that is in shorter supply today than in years past. In the end, regardless of why, we can change that.

My request is this. Look around as you go about your day. Try to, as much as possible, spread joy to those that deserve it. And maybe even a little to some who don’t. A little. I know that most people who act like jerks are really jerks, but some are just going through a bad time.

Also? Find and make a new friend. This takes time and commitment. And trust. And there’s the fear of loss, too. But the wonderful thing about friendship is this: when it exists, it’s work that helps both people.

Hopefully Adams has found a friend. If not, I’d be glad to show him my phone.

Halloween and Scary Movies

“You don’t get it do you? Society nods its head at any horror the American teenager can think upon itself. Nobody is going to care about exact handwriting.” – Heathers

Why don’t vampires go to Africa? They heard someone blessed the rains down there.

Happy Halloween.

The origins of Halloween are older and murkier than what can be teased out of history. Is it a Christian holiday tossed over the top of an old pagan one? Is it a purely Christian holiday? Is it a floor wax? Is it a dessert topping?

Why not all of the above?

Regardless, Halloween happens at my favorite time of the year. One of the things that we lose in the frenetic pace of modern society is a loss of connection to the cycles of life. There are long cycles: Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Adulthood, and Maturity. Technology certainly has changed those cycles – children play on tablets seeing things they ought not, and Madonna© pretends she’s sixteen rather than sixteen minutes short of eighty.

The shorter cycles are changed, as well. A typical day had time when we were fully engaged at work, and time when we weren’t. Now? Technology has made it so we’re partially engaged at work, and partially engaged with family. At least we don’t have to be engaged with Madonna®.

Thankfully Madonna™ can’t walk through walls – she’s a material girl.

But the year, that’s something that technology can only partially mess with. We can be warm in winter, and cool in summer, but unless we stay inside all year sealed in Tupperware™ (like Madonna®) we are exposed to the changing lights and temperatures of the season.

That is good. We are humans. Or at least I assume we’re all humans, since we all enjoy ingesting nutrients and drinking fluids that hydrate us while listening to sounds of non-random frequencies arranged in a mathematical progression juxtaposed with potentially emotionally triggering lyrics about mildly iconoclastic behavior. Correct?

But all of that aside, I love that we’re still connected to the world via the changing of the seasons. I’m not particularly a fan of summer. But I love the other nine months. And October is the sign that another damn summer is gone. And Halloween is when the weather turns, and in October there is one particular day when I can know that every day for the next five months will be colder than that day.

And I love that.

I hear Spiderman® got a job as a web developer.

October is also the month when the harvest is done. The time has come when the cycle is done. Planting in spring, growing in summer, harvesting in fall. Winter then comes, and the season has a pause. This is the time humans need for reflection, for learning, for being together, for planning. In short, none of the things that Madonna™ does.

For this cycle, at least, technology hasn’t stopped us entirely from getting to our roots.

Autumn is when the die is cast: we have either done what we need to do to make it through the winter, or we haven’t. I think that’s why horror movies are part of the season – harvest reminds us that we’re mortal, and for this part of the year we also, historically, had time to reflect on life and death and the cycle.

What nursery rhyme character loves this time of year as much as I do? Humpty Dumpty. He had a great fall.

So, thinking about death is natural – it is certainly part of the cycle. And that’s my guess as to why horror movies seem to fit so well with Halloween. And I like horror movies.

Many countries do horror movies really, really badly.

The Germans, for instance, make horror movies that are these weird psychological horror movies that probably only make sense if you wear rubber suits to go to the bank.
The Italian horror movies are nearly incomprehensible as German horror films, but the people in the movies look absolutely fantastic and change sides halfway through the movie.
English horror movies are generally as scary as the discussion of tax rates in the House of Commons. I guess that might be scary if you make enough money.
The three or four horror movies I’ve seen from Spain look like shoddy copies of Italian horror movies, but starring some American star like John Saxon. Why John Saxon? Why not – he can fight green goo as well as anyone else.
Japanese horror films started as clumsy metaphors for being bombed with nuclear weapons, but then morphed into clumsy metaphors for being overworked by evil corporations after being bombed by nuclear weapons.

I will say it was a touching story.

Nope, for me? It’s American horror films. I think we do this particularly well. My favorites are (in no particular order):

The Thing.
Alien.
In the Mouth of Madness.
Reanimator.
From Beyond.
Salem’s Lot.
Scanners.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973 only).
Event Horizon.
Night of the Living Dead.
Ravenous.
The Exorcist.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Phantasm.
Prince of Darkness.

I didn’t rank this list on purpose. If you’ve seen some of these, you’ll know right from the start if this matches up with what you like. But I’ll add this part, too. A horror movie doesn’t have emotional impact in a vacuum. Night of the Living Dead? To me, it was scary only because I saw it when I was five. Watching it now, it might be one of the tamest movies on the list, so, your mileage may vary.

I guess that’s what happens when you ask Kanye to enter a bodybuilding competition.

With minor exceptions on the list, most of those have a fairly intense paranormal component. I think that’s scarier than just people, otherwise numerous other classic movies like Silence of the Lambs would have been on the list. Sadly, there newest movie on the list was done before the year 2000. Have there been scary movies made since then?

Yeah. And I’ve seen bushel baskets of them. They’re just not nearly as good as what came before. Except for that one horror star. She’s scary.

Oh, wait. That’s Madonna®.

Don’t Fear The Reaper

“No. Not like this. I haven’t faced death. I’ve cheated death. I’ve tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.” Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Why did New Jersey get all the toxic waste and California get all the lawyers? New Jersey picked first.

When The Soon To Be Mrs. and I were just dating, I was cooking something or other. I think it was eggs. I like eggs sunny side up, and don’t particularly care if they’re cooked all the way.

The Soon To Be Mrs.: “Aren’t you worried about salmonella?”

John Wilder: (Laughs in full Chad manifestation.)

The Soon To Be Mrs.: (Swoons.)

Seriously, she swooned. I’ve never seen it before in my life, but in that moment I think that was what sealed the deal, the moment in time that The Soon To Be Mrs. realized that this one is different. He’s not like the others. Here is a man who has zero fear of The Current Thing, and knows that salmonella won’t be the thing that punches his ticket out of having a functioning circulatory system.

Weird. You can get salmonella from chickens, but not chickenella from salmon.

No. I’m not afraid of salmonella. I would spit in its tiny little eyes or flagellum or tentacles and say, “Not today, my bacterium friend! My Danish-Scots-Germanic blood is far too strong for the likes of you!” And then I would attack Poland. Oh, wait, that’s been done.

I know I’m not going to die like Hemingway, and I’m not going to die like the comedy greats Belushi, Twain, or Nietzsche did. Nope. I think I’m gonna go out like Elvis. On a toilet after having eaten a fried peanut butter, jelly and bacon sandwich covered in cheddar cheese and mayo. Nope, I’m gonna die on a toilet.

I mean, after all, a king should spend his last moments on the throne, right?

A lot of people worry about dying. I suppose I did, in my 20s, when I was worried about carrying out my responsibilities as a dad. Those are serious responsibilities – because those kids are going to be the legacy that I leave on Earth. That and my writing, collection of PEZ® dispensers and velvet Elvis paintings.

I tell you, when the King died, that left me all shook up.

Again, a lot of people worry about dying. I’m not sure why. Of things that are more-or-less predetermined, that’s the big one. We’re all going to die. All of us.

And I’m not sure I care.

Oh, sure, I want to live. I have no particular desire to die. If given the preference, I suppose I’m in favor of my continued heartbeat. But I don’t fear death. I don’t go to sleep at night wondering if this pain or that pain or that thing might be the symptom I look up on WebMD® that seals the deal that Wilder is going up to irritate Jesus in Heaven with bad puns.

I don’t worry about some future point when I’m going to enjoy life. I’ve achieved nearly every goal I’ve ever set for my life. End. Full stop. It’s like when a baseball game goes into extra innings, “Hey, free baseball.” And me? Free life. I’ve done nearly everything I’ve ever wanted to do.

If you don’t like Hillary, you should move to Benghazi. At least you know that there, she’ll leave you alone.

What do you give a man who has everything? I mean, besides another bottle of wine. You give that man: Today.

I’ve got Today. The only moment I live in is right now. And right now isn’t all that bad. I’m sitting in the sitting room (question: is any room I sit in, by definition, a sitting room? Discuss.) with the cool night air blowing in the window, some songs I love playing on the laptop, a cold beer by the keyboard, and the knowledge that at this moment, everything is fine.

Literally, in my life, Every Single Thing Is Fine. I could go into details, but you already know how awesome I am. So, I live for today?

Hell no.

That’s YOLO. The idea that “You Only Live Once” is a free pass to act in any fashion has corroded society. It’s really at the root of many of the problems we have today. It is, in many ways, the absolute inverse of the philosophy I’m trying to describe. YOLO seeks to elevate hedonism and the passions of the moment as the highest good. YOLO is Tinder® times Planned Parenthood© times SnapFaceGramInstaChat® times Rwanda®.

I wonder if Hindus consider YOLO offensive? (not my meme, as found)

It’s the inversion of beauty: it consists of being positive about, well, any old thing that feels good. I could list these “pleasures”, but you know the list as well as I do. We see it every day, with vice being paraded as virtue, and the continual demand going out for people to celebrate it, because, “Can’t you see? This horrid abomination that no healthy society or people in the entire history of the world has tolerated, iS BeAuTIfUL!” No, I think living a life built on YOLO is one doomed to fail – inevitably it will fail based on two reasons: it is materialism or a faith based on the nihilism of the material world writ large, and it is based on needs, like youth, wealth, sensation, or, yes, even life.

So, not YOLO.

One thing I’ve tried to preach is outcome independence. Indeed, since the final outcome of life on Earth is fixed, all the intermediate steps lead there. Instead, I try to focus on virtue and faith. I write not because of YOLO, and not because it’s easy. Some nights it’s hard as hell to get the post to “close” and feel right. There are dozens of posts where, even after 1600 words, I still didn’t say exactly what I meant to say. That’s okay, it’s on me. I’m learning, and if I were perfect at this, I wouldn’t have more work to do.

For me, it’s the work. It’s getting better. It’s finding ways to add value to those people around me. There are those who pull their weight in the world, and those that don’t. I want to be one that pulls his weight, who has contributed as much as I can to helping my family and the wider world.

Why was Karl Marx buried at Highgate Cemetery? He was dead.

I don’t always do it. And I’m not always right, either. I’ve produced some stuff in my life that was really, really good, but not perfect. Thankfully, that’s not my mark, either, since just like immortality here on Earth, searching for perfection is a lonely and silly pastime. I want to make the world a better place with my family (first) and my work (now second) guided by God. And I want people to laugh hard while learning and thinking about the things I write.

The beauty of this is to win, all I have to do is the best that I can do every day. To win? All I have to do is be the best person I can be every day. See? Each night, I go to bed and sleep soundly if I know, in that day, that I gave it my all. Do I take time for me? Sure. But that’s not the goal – I serve a higher purpose.

So, what do I fear? Not death. It’s coming whether I like it or not, and, honestly, I’d rather not return my body in factory-fresh condition – I’d like all the parts to fail at once. On the toilet. I think Elvis would have wanted it that way.

Oh, wait . . . .

I wonder if Elvis ate eggs sunny-side-up? Hang on, I’m sure he did. Elvis ate everything.

Yes, Your Leftist Friends Are Mentally Ill. You’re Not. Share This Post With Them To Trigger Them.

“Snap out of it! You’re Krusty the Clown! One of Look Magazine’s Hundred Most Promising Clowns of 1958!” – The Simpsons

I told Pugsley that Aristotle taught us that, “We are what we repeatedly do.” So I told him I was his mother.

A Dutch dude named Erasmus of Rotterdam (who died in 1536) made a famous quote that I’m sure you’re all familiar with, namely, “In regione caecorum rex est luscus.” Presumably, Erasmus said this before he died. I was going to follow this up with a joke about the Dutch, but then I looked at my site statistics, and found that the Netherlands is number 5 on the countries that come to visit here at Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise.

So, my conclusion is this: people of the Netherlands are amazing people who have impeccable taste in fine writing and I’d be glad to give them all a free bikini wax, but I’m pretty sure that they’re so tall, blonde, disciplined and perfectly proportioned that they’ve trained their bodies to not grow hair where they don’t want it. Go Netherlands!

I’m pretty sure they have flying cars in the Netherlands now.

Anyway, what Erasmus was saying was originally in Latin, but Latin isn’t a dead language – it’s still Roman around. My initial translation was, “Near the gas station in the skanky part of town, never pick up women after 3am.” These are wise words, but what Erasmus really meant was, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

That’s one of those phrases that sounds really cool. In fact, I imagined being able to see in a country full of blind people. I mean, the only actor that would be able to play Batman would be Christian Braille. And, using my crazy superpower of sight, I’d be able to break into their houses at night and steal all of their PEZ®.

But that’s not the way it would work.

I would probably try to explain to them that I could see – a sense that they didn’t have at all. The concept of photons and colors and would sound crazy to them. In fact, they’d probably think I was crazy and come at night while I was sleeping and give me blanket parties or worse until I shut up or left.

In the modern world, it’s similar, but it’s what’s commonly referred to as “Clown World” where everything is inverted. Things that are beautiful are corrupted, and people are expected to applaud the bravery inherent in people reveling in the corruption. I’ll let Stonetoss lead the introduction of the topic at hand.

If you’re not familiar with what Stonetoss is writing about, there is a “teacher” in Canada who decided, apparently, to wear comically large and obscene fake breasts to shop class. How do we know they’re obscene? YouTube® banned them.

But, yet, these Z-cups are allowed because a “teacher” showed up to work wearing them, and the school board is apparently afraid to confront the dude. When a parent tried to bring the subject up, the local school board shut down the meeting rather than confront the amazing amounts of silicone (or foam rubber??) being paraded in their classrooms. In fact, they say it’s illegal to criticize the “teacher”.

In my assessment of the situation, there are two possibilities. The first is that the “teacher” is so mentally insane that allowing him to dress like this is similar to allowing him to claim that he’s made of string cheese and now has a mouse phobia. That’s the first possibility.

The second is that the “teacher” is gaming the system and seeing how far he can push things so he can get mental disability payments and not have to show up to work, or not be graded based on his job performance. I actually consider this more likely, but, hey, it’s 2022 so he just might be bonkers.

This was actually the plot to a South Park® episode where a teacher became more aggressively, explicitly gay in front of his students in an attempt (I recall) to get fired. Instead, the people celebrated his inappropriate behavior because of his bravery. So, yeah. Blame Canada. I’m sure that this is what the Canadian troops were thinking about when they hit the beach at D-Day, the freedom for shop teachers to don Z-cup fake breasts.

Women are, oddly, not at all good with this. Not all women, of course. I use The Mrs. as a sounding board for this sort of insanity, and she (more or less) notes that it’s offensive for (at least some) actual women to see men parading around pretending to be women. But Canada says it’s okay. And companies will ban you for “hate” if you dare to not say that this is completely normal.

In 2022, it’s now accepted that teachers indoctrinated in Leftist institutions should be allowed free access to your children. And there’s nothing bad that can come of that. Because teachers have shown themselves to be so stable.

The problem really does start with Leftism. I know I drone on and on about this, but it’s true. Leftism is a mental illness rooted in victimhood. How can I prove this? THEY TELL US THIS WHENEVER THEY CAN. It’s worse than being stuck in a room filled with vegans who do Crossfit®.

I sometimes think it’s a competition on how many mental illnesses that they can have, like they all want to be the Georgy Zhukov of mental illness and be the (she/they/them/it) with the most medals.

Part of the idea is that Leftists are incapable of harboring thoughts that are counter to their programming. Scott Adams found this out and after this cartoon strip, he was canceled from 77 newspapers.

Here are a few examples of why.

Yup. Martha’s Vineyard. Importing millions of people across the border is amazing, right? Well, no. Not when they show up in near the beach bungalows of the rich and famous. Obama lives on Martha’s Vineyard, and his house alone could have housed every illegal alien that was transported there. But, no.

They booted all the illegals in 44 hours. Who needs a wall when you invade the territories of Leftist lawyers?

But the damage of Leftism is real. It destroys families. And it stops families from even being made.

But it leaves some really important questions to be asked.

And it makes you wonder what Biden is really after, when it turns out that “Right Wing Extremism” is actually less deadly than riding lawnmowers. Really.

Seriously, though, this isn’t the battle the Left should push, because when real Right Wing Extremism hits? Continents burn.

I guess that works for me. I’ll continue to be a Right Wing Extremist.

And if they want Clown World, that’s fine. They can soak in it.

Me? I think this next picture works better than anything they can come up with.

Erasmus would certainly agree with me. And? Go Netherlands! You guys rock!!!! (Yes, I know Ariel is Danish, but you Danes have got to get your pageviews up.)

Three Best Stocks To Own After A Nuclear Attack

“It’s not the money, it’s just all the stuff.” – The Jerk

Biden wanted to emulate North Korea’s experience for COVID – Biden liked the way Kim implemented a lockdown.

I was on hold with Tech Support working on site issues (again) when I came up with the post name. I couldn’t resist, because that’s exactly the sort of headline that I see when I flip through financial pages. Oh, sure, I could have just as easily gone with “How A Zombie Holocaust Can Help Your Portfolio”, but the nuclear attack seems a wee bit more timely.

As I’ve written before, a big part of wealth isn’t just cash. It isn’t money. Queen Elizabeth II may have had a much fancier funeral than I will, but just like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, she’s still very dead even though there are rocks worth hundreds of millions of dollars on top of her coffin. Money could buy her a lot of stuff and allow her to avoid Markle, but it couldn’t buy her one more minute on the planet than she had.

So, wealth means more than just money. And as the world seems to be shifting ever so fast under our feet, what are the true components of wealth?

I did hear about one king that was exactly 12” tall. He was a horrible king, but a good ruler.

First on my list would be having a horde of skilled fanatical barbarian soldiers that do my every bidding. That’s pretty cool. Sadly, I can’t find a wizard who’s willing to narrate things like the following every morning when I get out of bed and get ready to go to work:

“Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Conan John Wilder, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia Modern Mayberry upon a troubled brow. It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga. Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!”

That would be nice. I guess second on my list would be a wizard-bard to narrate my life, throwing in things like, “And despite having had one too many glasses of wine the night before, John Wilder bravely got up as his alarm went off, brushed his teeth, stared into his mirror, and began the noble process of finding socks to wear today.”

An illiterate wizard is useless. He can’t spell.

What would be third on my list? I mean, I’ve already got a fanatical army and a wizard-bard. Some people work a whole lifetime and don’t get either of those. At one point, I would have said “Immortal Life” but then I realized that if I lived too long, that would probably void the factory warranty. So, that’s out, unless those random calls I get on my cell phone about getting an extended warranty aren’t a scam.

But I still need to have a number three on my list. I’d say food for my fanatical barbarian army, but I think they’d be fine feeding themselves – that’s the advantage of having a barbarian horde – they make their own sauce. I guess I’ll have to live with surgically altered doubles that look and sound exactly like me. Why? If I have a fanatical barbarian army, why wouldn’t they send James Bond® after me?

I always invite Bond over to my BBQ. He’s got a license to grill.

For my fourth item, I suppose the boring thing would be to look for would be a lair hidden deep underneath a volcano suitable for launching my spaceships. The big problem is demand. First, I think Elon Musk has the market cornered. Second, if James Bond© saw what Great Britain looked like in 2022, he’d probably join up with Blofeld™ because he and Blofeld© probably share more actual British values than Britain does.

I’ll be serious – I wouldn’t turn any of those things down except the doubles. As irritating as I am, I can’t imagine what it would be like to live with multiple iterations of myself. And I can’t even imagine the number of socks that would be in the living room.

But what is real wealth outside of money?

I’m going to start with family. The Mrs., for whatever reason, is on board with my nonsense. And, as I wrote recently, we are building the people that will take us into the future. They are our children. We build them for the future, so that they can build the future. Of wealth, there is absolutely none more precious. Except the fanatical barbarian horde.

Yet, more battles are won by infantry than by adultery.

Second on the list is health. I can only buy this a little. The rest I either have due to genetics (on one side of my family, I have heard that the only thing that can kill us is gravity), or hard work. I need to spend a bit more time on the hard work. And that’s an easy way to invest in myself that has amazing dividends.

Third on the list is skills. Skills are yet another way of investing in myself. What kind of skills? The basic ones are the best – and there is depth required in some of them. If I garden, it’s not just planting a seed and then walking off to come back later and eat. Nope. There are millions of ways to kill a plant, and I know most of them. Many skills come from simply knowing how to not screw it up. So, picking the right ones is one way to get to the future.

I debated putting reputation up higher, bud decided that I’d leave it here. In the world, leadership is a way to multiply yourself. And that leadership is a function of reputation. Known as a liar and a cheat? No man will follow me or trust me. Known to be a man of my word? I can have influence far above my level of skills or health. When General Patton took over the II Corps in North Africa, he had a few weeks to turn them into a fighting force. That he was able to do so was built on skills, sure, but more than that on his reputation for having an amazing force of will.

The last thing on my list for today is a variation on the first real thing. Just as my children take me into the future, the inheritance that I got from Pa and Ma Wilder allows me to know what to send into that future. It is the inheritance of values that I speak of here.

I heard she never carried cash – who wants to carry around pictures of their ex-mother-in-law?

So, on this day, I’m certain of one thing: I’m wealthier than Queen Elizabeth. And in better shape, too. I wouldn’t trade her family for mine. I’m certain I could beat her at Uno®, so I have skills covered. Reputation, though is difficult. I mean she couldn’t hit 100 before she died, though I think she made sure Diana did.

Demoralization? Nope. That’s How They Get Ya.

“Seriously, I don’t get it. What, you shoot luck lasers out your eyes? It’s just hard to picture. And certainly not very cinematic. I mean, luck? What coked-out, glass pipe-sucking freakshow comic book artist came up with that little chestnut? Probably a guy who can’t draw . . . .” – Deadpool 2

In calculus class, never sit with identical twins on either side of you. It’s hard to differentiate between them.

I recalled one particular wrestling match in high school when getting ready to write this post.

I was a senior, but the opponent I was to wrestle that night was undefeated. That was all I knew, since I’d never wrestled him. Late in the season, hearing your opponent was undefeated was pretty scary for any wrestler because it was an indicator that they were pretty good. While my record only had a few losses, undefeated was much, much better than “a few losses”.

As the home team, we had to move the wrestling mat from our practice room into the gym. As I helped roll up the mat, fretting a bit about my looming match, I looked down – there was a brand new quarter exposed after I moved the mat. I picked it up, and popped it into the pocket of my jeans. I didn’t give it much more thought, but I was happy at that point my name wasn’t Roy. Why? Because if anyone saw me pick it up and put it in my pants they might call me quarter Roy.

The time for the match came. The match started with an introduction, where the opponents would be announced, and run to the center of the match, shake hands, and then run back into the line. The line started with the little guys (98 pounders) and finally worked up to the big guys. I didn’t wrestle, heavyweight, but I was the next weight class down. We Wilders are a hearty folk.

We never cried, though. People would have thought the truck was headed for a breakdown.

When I shook his hands, he didn’t seem so tough. He looked, well, like a guy I could beat. My apprehension started to melt away. Besides, I had found a lucky quarter.

When I wrestled him, I did beat him, pinning him in the second period. When it was time to meet him at the District Championship, I met him in the finals. Pinned him in the first period during that match. And before the match, I could see it in his eyes – he was already defeated. He knew that I would win, and he was just hoping I wouldn’t pin him again. He knew he had no chance.

A lion would never cheat on his wife. But a Tiger Wood.

The first match was mine based on skill and strength. The second match? It was mine because he knew that I was going to win. The point of this story isn’t to tell you how utterly awesome I am – you already knew that. No, the point was to present Wilder’s Law #541:

The easiest way to win is if your opponent convinces you that you’ve already lost.

This is the game that’s being played against us today. The nonsense about the January 6 riots being a THreAt to MuH DemOcrACY is one of those. If the 81 million people who voted for Trump had wanted to take and hold the Capitol? It damn sure would be in our hands this very minute and Nancy Pelosi would be sober and asleep right now. In jail. The purpose of the Congressional inquiry and the convictions are actually a relatively brazen attempt to make you think that we’ve already lost.

I could give dozens of other examples of this behavior, and so could you. I might even post in depth on one of them on Monday, but I might change my mind.

I guess that would give me an open mind?

The point is a simple one: almost all of the power that the Left has is built on illusion, smoke and mirrors. An example of that was the power of the NKVD (later the KGB) over the average Russian. The power was this: the Russians were beaten. They were convinced that the Communist Party had one. They were stared down, and looked away.

Fortunately, this wasn’t the case in most of the Western world. Many have tried to stir up fear to create tyranny, and this is a practice that has happened again and again. Yet even as the tyranny approaches, the people of the West push it back.

The process is often ugly, it’s often bloody, and it sometimes takes not a month or a year, but decades. The Mrs. is fond of quoting the actress Audrey Hepburn, who said, “You can have everything, just not everything all at once.” There is a lot of truth in that statement – we might have freedom, and we might have prosperity, but it is now clear to me that we can’t be guaranteed both at once.

I’m expecting someone to go full Batman® soon.

And that’s fine. Heck, it’s even preferable. I love a challenge, mainly because if there isn’t a real challenge, it’s not nearly so fun. I mean, the idea of a velociraptor in a room full of kittens isn’t a lot of challenge, unless you’re one of the kittens.

Has the world been in worse shape? Certainly. Is this something we can fix? Absolutely. Will it be the toughest thing that most of us will ever do in our lives?

Without a doubt. But we have one other thing on our side.

That quarter I found when I was rolling up the mat? I still have it. I figured it was a lucky quarter. I knew that I was good, but even at 17 I knew Wilder’s Law #443: Being good is great, but being lucky is even better.

There are many things that I’m certain of, and this is one of them: we are the luckiest people, ever.

Remember: Your Mission Isn’t Done

“Santa Maria! Captain, you cannot punish the crew like this. They will mutiny!” – Sealab 2021

The big problem with the French Revolution is that lots of folks lost their heads.

Have a long way to drive tomorrow, so here’s a repeat. Enjoy!

One winter, while hunting elk up on Wilder Mountain, we had, well, an issue. We were about fifteen or twenty miles in from the nearest pavement, and headed home.

It was overcast. It was lazily spitting snow, with a breeze that was slowly picking up. Looking to the west, where there should be a resplendent sunset, the sky was dark, heavy, and pendulous with brooding storm clouds that blotted out even a hint of the winter Sun.

That was when the problem hit. Pa Wilder, while driving over a “road” that was little more than a common path cut by four-wheel-drive vehicles over the course of decades of hunting and firewood gathering, drove over a small branch that had fallen in the road. Not a problem, right?

Well, it was a problem. In this case, the branch had the stem of a broken off limb, sticking straight up. Pa drove the GMC Jimmy® right over that sharp shard of limb.

In the span of a dozen or so feet, we had lost not one, but two tires. It penetrated the center of each tire, poking a hole the size of a half-dollar coin in each.

Amazingly, we had lost another tire already that day, already.

Ahhh, I remember this trip. Those were the Goodyears®.

We now had a four-wheel drive with five tires and three flats. In winter. As a blizzard approached and night was setting in. And all of this was in country where it could easily hit -40°F as night descended.

I bring this up to say that we had a mission. Our mission at that point in time was to get home. There were several challenges, and I’m pretty sure if most people were in the backcountry as a blizzard was descending that the last person they would choose would be a 12-year-old boy to be a guy on the team.

Which is sad.

Children can have missions. Children can face danger. Children can do important things. We forget that because we’re in a society that doesn’t give children important things to do, mostly. Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were as young as 14.

I hear the Russians just canceled their Penguin Army program. Now all they have left is Navy Seals.

To be clear: Midshipmen in the Royal Navy were 14. A midshipman is an officer. If you were unaware, the Royal Navy wasn’t a social club, and often those boys fought in wars. As officers.

So we forgot that boys can be given real, substantial responsibility. But there’s also the chance that we forget something else: that each of us is on a mission. And each of us has a role to play.

We currently are in a place where freedom is an increasingly precious and rare commodity. It’s not just in the United States – Trump may have said, “Make America Great Again” but down under they seem to be following the “Make Australia A Prison Again” plan. And Canada?

I love our Canadabros that come by regularly (Canada is the second-largest readership here), but Canada seems to be determined to become the Soviet Above the 49^th Parallel, led by that Tundra Trotsky, Trudeau.

Pictured in background: the only two Canadians Justin’s mother didn’t have sex with.

It seems like in this day and age we all have a mission. Just like 12 isn’t too young, 80 isn’t too old.

Frankly, we need all hands on deck. The size of the mission is the largest on the North American continent since 1774. I almost wrote that the idea was to preserve the Constitution and the Republic. Seriously, I’d love nothing more than to write that.

I’d love for that to happen. I’d love for us to come together. I’d settle for the laws to look like they did 90 years ago. Heck, even 70 years ago. That would be preferable to today.

A reversion, sadly, is impossible.

Whatever will come from tomorrow will not look like the past. It may be a shadow. The Holy Roman Emperors weren’t Roman. And the Holy Roman Empire wasn’t the Roman Empire.

And I hear that soon enough he’ll be sending ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire, too. Can’t you just sniff the leadership?

Or it may be something entirely different.

I think it will be entirely different.

And that’s where you come in. Yes, you.

You have a mission to create a new nation here. It won’t look like what we have today – it simply cannot, since we have created a situation that is at the far end of stability, but more on that Wednesday.

I assure you, you play a part. The initial conditions of what happens are crucial to the final outcome. If George Washington had wanted to be King? If Thomas Jefferson had been a Martian Terminator Robot like the one that keeps triggering my motion detector lights at night even though the sheriff won’t believe me?

Things would be entirely different.

And you are important. Your actions in the next decade are critical to the creation of what will come after. Do we want a nation that will be based on slavery, control, and that eternal boot stamping on a human face?

I’d vote no. If you’re a regular here, I’m betting that’s your vote, too.

I think everything he wrote was Orwellian.

If so, let me shout as loudly as I can: You Are Not Done. This is Not Over. What is it that you can do to create a world where freedom beats slavery? What can you do to create a world where children can run free from the indoctrination of an all-powerful, all-regulating state?

There’s a lot.

Our nation was, thankfully, built on the consent of the governed. Most things that local government provides, we want. To quote Python, Monty:

But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

To be clear: the Federal government does very little to make anything in the list above better, and often does a lot to make them worse. Except for the interstate highways. Those are actually pretty cool.

But I will tell you – you are the seed of the future of this country. You are the seed of the future of this continent.

Never cross a Scrabble® player. They’ll send you threatening letters.

You are the seed of the future of this world. It doesn’t matter how old you are. The time is coming, and coming quickly where great injustices will be attempted. And you are the seed to make what comes after better for humanity. Would the world rather live in 1950’s America or 1930’s U.S.S.R.?

The choice is stark.

Your mission is clear. How will you act to make your county, your state, your country one where free men can walk?

It’s up to you.

Back to the mountain.

For me, it was a game. That’s the advantage of being 12. Pa Wilder and my older brother (also named John due to a typographical error) and I wheeled the tires so we had two good ones in front. We locked in the hubs on the four-wheel drive.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive up a mountain path in a car with only two tires in a snowstorm as it got darker every minute. It doesn’t work very well. The flat back wheels couldn’t push the Jimmy® up the hill.

That’s where I came in. It was my job to take the winch cable, run up the hill, and loop the cable up the base of a tree. Pa would then use the combination of the winch and the two front tires to pull the Jimmy© up.

Tree by tree, cable length by cable length, we worked pretty flawlessly as a team to get the Jimmy™ to the top of the hill. Thankfully, for the most part it was downhill from there. Although Pa was driving on the rims, we got it home.

Don’t let the jack slip on your foot when you’re changing a tire. You might need a toe.

Was there danger? Certainly, there always is. We had snow, so we had water. Ma would have called the Sheriff not too long after dusk, and even though the mountains were a labyrinth of roads, people had seen us. We also had matches, hatchets, wool blankets, gasoline, and a mountain’s worth of firewood to keep us warm.

But we also had a mission. Each of us served our purpose, and we got home.

Pa was a bit raw about having to buy two new rims and three new tires for a day’s worth of not seeing any elk, though. For the record, I never saw a single elk when hunting with Pa. I’m telling you, that man knew how to hunt. Finding? Sometimes I think he just wanted a good drive in the woods and hike with his boys, teaching them about living. Teaching them about missions, and the part that they play, whether they know it or not.

In this life, we all have a mission, and we all play a part in it. I can assure you that your part is not done, because you’re above ground, breathing, and reading this.

I hate to repeat something so trite, but in this case, it’s true: you are not done. This is not over. And the whole world depends . . . on you.

It’s up to you. You will create the future.

So, go do it.

Parents, Photos, And Moving Out

“Well, the part where Romeo dies is sad. But where Juliet died is sad too. But I think the saddest part of all is when Jan said ‘Who goes there?’ before Peter said ‘Hark’.” – The Brady Bunch

Definitely would have been a better show with this cast.

There’s a larger point to some of these stories that I’ll be putting out on Friday that will become obvious over time. But I want to stress this: outside of the obvious jokes, 100% of these stories are true.

I remember the first time I called Ma Wilder “mom.” I know that’s a memory that really most people don’t have, since most people don’t even know what a mom is when they call them mom. Heck, it isn’t even the earliest memory I have, which involves PEZ®, a claw-foot bathtub, and a poorly insulated electrical appliance.

I don’t recall how old I was, exactly when I first called Ma “mom”. I do recall it was a bright spring day and Ma Wilder was ironing in the laundry room. The back door was open, letting light and air in through the screen door that led to the backyard.

What Ma Wilder figured out while ironing: she had more pressing concerns.

I think what the sentence was (memory is a bit fuzzy on this, too), but I think it was something, “I’m going to go to my room, Mom,” or something like that.

I recall being a bit scared. How would she react? I was pretty sure I was supposed to call her “mom” but what if she reacted poorly? What if it made her mad?

She said, “Okay.”

And it came out of her mouth like it was normal, though, looking back on it I think even she had to hold back and concentrate on it being . . . normal.

The reason I remember this is because, unlike all those people who have to work at it, I was born a bastard. Longer version, I believe that this was the day that my adoption was finalized and I became an official Wilder rather than “that blonde kid that keeps hanging around the house and breaking a nearly endless stream of things.”

Because I did that, too. Most of the calamities that I caused were out of a sense of experimentation. For instance, one day I was watching The Brady Bunch after coming home from first grade. Now, as rankings on television programs go, The Brady Bunch was certainly the lowest tier of after-school television. Much higher was F-Troop and also Hogan’s Heroes. Of course, the gold standard was Star Trek.

Obscure fact: Ricardo Montalban had a tough time finding work after Star Trek II: No one wanted to hire an ex-Khan.

Anyway, it was The Brady Bunch that caused much of the destruction of my family’s stored memories. You see, in one episode, Greg (it was Bobby, I think) had taken a picture that proved the receiver’s foot was out of bounds on a key catch in a football game.

How did he prove this? He took a picture into a dark room, and then put it in water with some chemicals. Presto, he was able to stretch the picture and make it bigger. Why on Earth was the Wilder family making do with these little tiny 3” by 5” (2mm by 5 liter) snapshots when I could just dunk them in water in the bathroom and stretch them to make them larger.

I was no dummy! I knew that to make this work, you had to be in the dark, so I closed the door. Thankfully, this bathroom was an interior one with no windows! I put the picture in the water and tried to stretch it. No go.

Huh, looking back I could have died of exposure.

Maybe if I soaked it longer? I’m sure I waited for at least 15 seconds before my sucrose-addled brain realized the problem. Of course! It was simple! Greg had chemicals in the water that made the photo stretch!

Where could I find chemicals? Yup, mom kept them under the sink.

I added pretty much every chemical I could find under the sink to my impromptu photo embiggening water bath. I believe I probably created a stew of chemicals that would have been recognized by OSHA as not a violation of civil law, but probably regulated by the Geneva Convention as one of those pesky “war crimes”.

I took the photo and tried to stretch it. Still a no go. Well, it must be this particular photo. Why not put all of them in the sink to try to stretch them? I’m sure it’ll work.

Hmmm, no go on any of the dozens and dozens of photos that chronicled the life of my brother (it’s now obvious why his name is John Wilder, too) from birth to 8^th grade. Well, no harm, no foul, right? I’ll just let the toxic brew of chemicals water out and leave the soggy mass of soap, home cleanser, and hand lotion (I do distinctly recall adding that) covered photos dry out.

The best way to let them dry out? In a soggy mass. I’m pretty sure that when they “dried” they stuck together well enough that the only things left of my brother’s childhood are his dental records.

This was my attempt to teach my newly minted parents that I was certainly not like the other children and that, just perhaps, I shouldn’t be left alone quite so much. Silly adults.

They didn’t learn. Their next attempt was for Ma Wilder to quit her job to take care of me. There was one two-week period Ma was needed down at the bank that Pa ran to help get The Books ready for the Bank Examiners. They did what every parent would do: hire a local teenager to watch me. The first one quit after a day. The second one quit after two days.

Ma Wilder, actual quote in my room after I did this: “Do you smell something burning?”

I’m thinking that it was about this point that Ma and Pa were regretting paying that attorney all of that money to get me free and clear as their child. And I think I had broken them.

“John, would you please, after school, just come home. Make yourself a sandwich. And then sit and watch TV. For two weeks. If you do this, we’ll pay you.” The equivalent they were offering me, per day, calculates in 2022 dollars as $78.39. For a first grader. All I had to do? Just not destroy the house during those hours. I could destroy at will when I was off the clock.

This was a good deal. I accepted it, and kept my end of the bargain.

So, my first paying gig was to just restrain myself from being an insurance hazard for two weeks, for which I was paid the (2022 equivalent) sum of $783.90.

Tax free, baby.

So, they paid me. I didn’t feel slighted that they put my money into a savings account. But, what to do with all my newfound wealth? I thought about it and decided. About a month later I announced at breakfast, “I think I’m going to move out and get my own place.”

These people had all these stupid rules. It was time to fly free.

There’s nothing sweeter than a baby’s laughter. Except when it’s 3am. And you’re home alone. And you don’t have a baby.

Ma Wilder, again, didn’t react poorly. “Please tell me about your plan.”

I explained to her that I had $783.90, and I was going to go get my own apartment.

“What will you do for food?”

“I have money, $783.90 in 2022 dollars.”

She gently went through what food for a week would cost, as well as rent. She never said I couldn’t move out, but after doing the math, it turned out all the money I had would be gone in a month.

“Well, I guess I’ll stay then,” a pause, “Mom.”

The Lie of Living Your Best Life (now including cookies)

“Smoking marijuana, eating Cheetos® and masturbating does not constitute plans in my book.” – Breaking Bad

In a constantly downward spiral, Kermit finally found the downside in living his best life.

I thought I’d take a bit of a night off, here’s something that many current readers might not have seen . . . .

A few weeks ago my daughter, Alia S. Wilder was in town. We were in the middle of preparing dinner of steak, steak, and more steak for the grill when I saw Alia diving face first into a plate of cookies.

When she came up for air I asked innocently, “I thought you were on the keto diet?”

I did notice a mood change when I was on the keto diet: I got tired of cheese and my only joy in life consisted of watching television shows about murder.

“No, she said, “I’m living my best life.” I could even hear the italics in her voice. It’s amazing how well font choice carries in my kitchen. I think it’s the tile.

John Wilder: “Umm, what exactly does ‘my best life’ mean?” I thought I could tell by context, but I wanted to give her a chance to explain.

Alia S. Wilder: “It’s living your life by being who you are naturally. It’s doing what you want.”

I slowly shook my head. That’s exactly what I thought it was. Cue volcano erupting:

One of the nice things about being a parent is that you can be honest with your children when they are being utterly foolish. This was one of those times.

My first words were: “You know this is going to go into the blog, right?”

Is this why they hold the neighborhood block party when we leave for vacation?

I then started a tirade. As this was the second time that I’d met her boyfriend, you’d think I’d hold back to give a good impression that I was a nice, genteel father who wears cardigan sweaters and puts on loafers and talks to hand puppets as if they were real. You’d be wrong, and I tried the hand puppet thing, but one of my personalities thought it was creepy. No, Mr. Rogers© wasn’t here that night. I let loose with a full broadside worthy of Nelson’s fleet at Trafalgar.

I was a horrible pirate captain. They told me, “The cannon be ready,” and I responded “are.”

“You realize that’s the single stupidest piece of advice you’ve ever been given, right?” I continued, not even having gotten warmed up yet. “It’s the advice a teenager thinks up in the shower and then considers it a deep thought because, well they’re a teenager in middle school, and middle school age children are the single stupidest subspecies ever set loose on planet Earth.” I paused for breath. You need decent lung capacity if you’re going to go into full rage enhanced by spittle.

I continued. “Why is it stupid? Because people are awful. You’re awful. I’m awful. We have to work each minute to NOT do what we’d like, because what we’d like to do, if left only to our own desires is . . . also awful. You, me, every single one of us.”

I could feel the full rolling boil starting.

“Living my best life is the strategy of a three-year-old that wants to eat an entire box of Oreos® at one sitting and then lie about it and blame the poodle. Living my best life combines all of the worst ideas of abandoning duty, honor, and responsibility in only four words: ‘living my best life.’ Oh, I decided not to work today. I’m living my best life. I decided that I would rather spend my money on avocado-flavored non-fat organic vaping juice rather than baby formula. I’m living my best life. I don’t care if I offended you, I have to speak my truth when living my best life. Oh, I’m sorry Western Civilization, we can’t go back to the Moon and advance the human race to the stars because I’m busy shopping. I’m living my best life.”

What came to my mind during this tirade conversation were the words of the dead French scientist, mathematician, religious philosopher and part-time Uber driver Blaise Pascal:

“Man’s greatness comes from knowing that he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched. Thus, it is wretched to know that one is wretched, but there is greatness in knowing that one is wretched.”

In this quote when Pascal wrote “wretched,” he meant, “of inferior quality; bad.”

Follow your nose, it always knows. Specifically all about pressure, mathematics, and designing a computer by the age of 19, in 17^th Century France.

Pascal didn’t think mankind was naturally awful, he knew that mankind was naturally awful: prideful, selfish, lustful, mean, and greedy. I’m not sure how Pascal got that idea, maybe he was picked on about nose size when he was in middle school. But he was correct. We’re inferior. But our greatness comes not from that obvious inferior quality, it comes from knowing that you’re awful, and then not being awful.

If we know that we’re awful, we can do something about it. If we think that being awful is okay, that we can live our best life, then it’s an excuse to be awful. In fact, it’s worse than that. Aleister Crowley wrote, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” which has been appropriated by the Church of Satan® and correctly interpreted to mean . . . do whatever you want to do.

Apparently living your best life allows you to dress like Dr. Evil on a regular basis.

One particular website (not gonna given ‘em a link, they’re the first one listed when you Google® “living my best life”) has a list, which includes the following gems of personally corrosive advice on how to live your best life (note, my comments are in italics):

Do what you want – let your inner three-year-old make all your decisions.
Speak your truth – not the truth, your truth since hearing the actual, real truth from other people might make you sad.
Practice sacred self-love – and everyone should celebrate you for your sacred self-love since you deserve to live your best life because you suffered so much because of your (INSERT VICTIM STATUS QUALIFICATION HERE).

Not all of the advice on the website was horrible, but most of it was shallower than the gene pool that produced Johnny Depp your typical congressman.

So, under this philosophy, if I’m fat, the problem isn’t that I’m fat and should have fewer cookies: the problem is the world is fataphobic.
If I think I’m a cat, the problem isn’t that I’m delusional: the problem is that the world is transspeciesphobic.
If I think that being an American has nothing to do with the values and norms of the last 300 years: the problem is your problem for being tied to the past.

When the cookies ran out, the monster came out.

So, in summary, living your best life is nothing more than permission to be the very worst person you can be. All that being said, Alia S. Wilder really does make some tasty cookies.