Significance – Page 5 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Blogger Versus Evil

Jack Burton: “Great. Walls are probably three feet thick, welded shut from the outside, and covered with brick by now.”

Wang Chi: “Don’t give up, Jack.”

Jack Burton: “Okay, I won’t Wang. Let’s just chew our way out of here.” – Big Trouble in Little China

Never make a deal to buy a guitar from the Devil. There are always strings attached.

The Exorcist is a feel-good movie. Well, at least it is for me.

I wanted to watch it when I was an especially wee Wilder, but for whatever reason, Ma and Pa Wilder felt that exposing a first grader to that particular film would be considered a war crime. I don’t remember how old I was when I finally saw it, but as I recall it was rented on a VHS tape.

By the time I’d seen it, I’d already been exposed to much more brutal horror: Lovecraft, Stephen King, and Norman Lear sitcoms. I’ll say this about reading horror – the things I conjured in my mind while tearing through the pages of The Stand were far scarier than anything I’d ever seen in a movie.

But I made a pretty bold statement: The Exorcist is a feel-good movie, so I guess you’re gonna make me back it up. Thankfully, I have that not only on my authority, but on the authority of the author of The Exorcist. William Peter Blatty summed up the reason I like horror films with this very simple quote:

“My logic was simple: if demons are real, why not angels? If angels are real, why not souls? And if souls are real, what about your own soul?”

Blatty even described The Exorcist as his ministry – it seems he’s religious. Who would have expected that?

What don’t demons wear hairpieces? Because there would be Hell toupee.

Much of what we see in the world we explain through simple materialism. But when I read novels where the demons are mere humans, well, (with the exception of Hannibal Lechter) I’m generally let down when the Scooby Doo® ending explains away the supernatural mystery at the heart of the story. Mr. Blatty’s quote describes exactly why.

“If demons are real, why not angels.”

Now I know that several readers are atheists. As I’ve pointed out before, this blog is sort-of a litmus test. People that are the kind of atheist that just hates God will generally not opt-in to reading this blog for any length of time. I have no idea why, but they just don’t. Actual, rational atheists that don’t turn rabid when the supernatural is discussed don’t seem to mind.

Maybe they look at it like I look at the WWE®: they can watch it and be amused, even though they’re certain it’s not real. They especially like it when Hulk Hogan® hits me in the head with a chair.

Where did Randy “Macho Man” Savage™ work out? The Slim-Jim©.

Regardless, I think most readers here share the same view of Evil (or even evil) in this world. It’s visible in the raw naked lust for power that we have seen repeated again and again from the Left. It’s also visible in their unbridled joy at the destruction of Truth, Beauty, and Society.

The Left revels in the Lie, the inversion of Truth, the inversion of Beauty:

Billions of dollars in damage in Minneapolis is a “peaceful protest” while a march on the Capitol is, according to President* Biden: “The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”
They demand, using free speech, to restrict the free speech of those that offend them.
The Left demands you look at what is obviously a man, and claim it to be a woman.

It’s simple, really: everything that’s Bad is presented as good. And everything Good? Well, it’s Bad. How dare you think self-restraint and hard work is virtuous?

Sniff. “Smells like fraud.”

Let’s look at how a simple Good thing like a married man and woman having a baby is turned on its head:

What about the woman’s career?
Why not live the childfree life?
Why have the baby at all?
There are too many people on the planet already.

The last argument is especially Evil, because when the propaganda works, the headlines then sing out: “since we’re not having enough babies, we need to import multitudes to grow our economy.” “Meet the New Americans.”

It’s fun to use this technique on Leftists. I can recall a Twitter® exchange with a Leftist where I Tweeted™ that I opposed immigration to the United States on the grounds that people in the United States had the highest carbon footprint, so by bringing in more people into the United States they were destroying the planet.

Brain lock ensued when they couldn’t deal with the conflict between their two opposing beliefs. It’s fun to come up with these couplets to invert the Evil right back at them, though, in the end, there is no conversion for a True Believer outside of a gentle helicopter ride. They have given in to the Evil. They’ll avoid the conversation.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: three ways to dispose of a dead Leftist.

It is especially difficult for parents of children: what is innocent is sexualized. A first-grade boy isn’t old enough to decide what he should eat on a regular basis – why would the world think that he should be turned into a she?

It’s all around us, every day. It’s sold to us in media, it’s in the news, it’s everywhere.

And it’s attacking the Values of what we all know, deep inside ourselves, to be True and Good. That which is Good, True and Beautiful hasn’t changed within the lifetime of mankind on this planet, but when you’re confronted with people trying to sell that which is a Lie as the Truth?

You can be sure those people are Evil.

Not to say that people on the Right are immune to that – far from it. Eaton Rapids Joe has a great little story to that effect here (LINK).

To be clear, the ultimate aim of the propaganda of Evil is simple: to make Good people feel despair.

Why despair? Despair is the opposite of hope. It is the opposite of Truth. It is the opposite of Beauty. Despair is Evil.

And when propaganda wins? Evil wins.

H.P. Lovecraft was tormented by doubt all of his life. Imagine if he hadn’t slept in despair bedroom.

But that’s not what happened in The Exorcist. Father Karras, who had lingering doubts and was on the verge of Despair, conquered it.

Because he conquered Despair, Father Karras conquered Evil.

When you feel Despair, know that’s nothing more than Evil. And you can conquer it, too.

Yeah, I told you that The Exorcist was a feel-good story. And I was right.

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Extra Meme and Tagline, because I made one too many:

In other news, the 2024 election will be postponed until they find the results in Biden’s desk.

Money Is Not The Only Form Of Wealth

“Well, as I said, time has no meaning here. So if you leave, you can go anywhere, any time.” – Star Trek: Generations

What do you call a rogue sheep with a machine gun? Lambo.

When I lived in Houston, my job was all consuming. It’s been my theory that people move to Houston for one reason: to work. The climate is difficult. The freeways are often lines of cars creeping along like Joe Biden in an elementary school. One upside is that there can’t be a (Some) Black Lives Matter® protest because the Houston Astros© always steal their signs.

When I was a Temporary Texan, my life was consumed by work – and it was stressful work. Each day brought a new crisis we had to solve. It got so bad that I left home early to avoid the traffic, so I got to work early. I left work late to avoid the traffic, so I got home late. A fourteen-hour day wasn’t uncommon. I put blood, sweat, and tears into that job, so it was good that I wasn’t working at a restaurant.

The last time I went out for dinner, I asked the waiter how they prepared the chicken for frying. “Nothing special. We just tell them they’re going to die.”

For many weeks, I was gone every hour that baby Pugsley was awake during a weekday. I would, however, catch up with The Mrs. when I got home. That was a priority. We knew what we were getting into when we made the move from Alaska. Moving to Houston was, for us, entirely about work. I should have known during the job interview that something was up: they asked if I could perform under pressure, but I told them I only knew Bohemian Rhapsody.

Most (not all!) weekends I was able to keep the work at bay. I’d sleep in on Saturday, and then we’d do something as a family. By Saturday night I felt, “normal” but by Sunday afternoon I’d realize that I’d have to go back in to work on Monday and repeat the whole thing again. That made me feel pretty gloomy – it felt like time was slipping away.

This was how Sunday evening felt when I worked in Houston.

One Sunday night, however, I was getting my things ready for the next day. I was looking for my dress shoes (I was in an office that required them at that time) and couldn’t find them. Since I always took them off at the same place, that confused me.

After looking in all the logical places, the only choice then was to look in all of the illogical places. When you live alone, everything is pretty findable. When you have a wife, things move around on their own. When you have children under seven? The toilet gets clogged with decorative clam shell soaps that The Mrs. bought.

So, when I found my shoes under Pugsley’s bed, I wasn’t really surprised.

I was, however, touched. As near as we can figure, Pugsley had come to the conclusion that I only wore those shoes when I was gone all day. As near as his Gerber®-addled mind could conceive, if I didn’t have the shoes, I could spend every day at home with him.

Not bad. And I was touched.

I tried to buy running shoes the other day – but the only ones I saw were stationary.

One of the ideas of wealth is money. And I was in Houston, like everyone else, to make money.

But there’s another idea of wealth: time.

There are a group of people who are driven by playing that game and devote themselves exclusively to their business. That makes sense. The world needs people who are single-minded in wanting to change it.

Most people have read about people like Edison who never slept more than seven minutes a night and spent most of his life at work while making a fortune, and Elon Musk who famously slept in the factory to get car production worked out. And Musk and Edison both have another thing in common: they both got rich off of Tesla.

Meanwhile, the GPS is saying: “Recalculating . . . recalculating . . . “

If that’s what they choose? Fine. The idea of spending time on their passion for business is exactly that – a choice. Just like having a finite supply of money gives you a set of choices of what you can do in life, there is another budget – a finite number of hours.

And that is life. Life is made up of those hours that we use. Just as inflation eats away at the value of money, distraction eats away at the value of life.

What kind of distraction?

Well, pointless things – think Twitter® and most of Facebook™. I was on Twitter© a while back, and found it was good at exactly one thing: making me irritated.

I even take this aversion to not wasting the hours and minutes of my life unless it was a conscious decision to absurd levels. For several years of my life, I ate something I didn’t like all that much for lunch because there was no line.

I hate the idea of waiting five minutes of my life when I don’t to. This still applies even if I waste those five minutes on something unproductive. For a long time, I avoided history – I just couldn’t see a future in it.

I’m reading a book about the history of lubricating oils and bearings. Best non-friction book I’ve ever read.

But now society is built on creating and feeding distraction to people – the more distraction that’s consumed, the greater the profit level for these companies. And these are not even distractions that make us feel better – but distractions that in many cases just consume time.

I’m not sure that the idea of a “balanced” life is one that exists in reality. A human life is built up in phases. The long languid summers of youth give up to days that are packed with all the trappings of a family and work and the fullness of life. When my youngest, Pugsley, heads out into the world, who knows what I’ll do with the time?

Perhaps I’ll spend it finding places to hide his shoes.

Life Is A Struggle: That’s A Good Thing

“The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel. It’s a wonderful way to live. It’s the only way to drive.” – Rush

A computer once beat me at chess. It lost at kickboxing, though.

The Mrs. and I have recently been playing chess. It’s not a lot of chess, it’s mainly on Saturday nights when things are a bit slower. I’ve been enjoying the games. If I were to guess, before the last time we played, the games tilted slightly in my favor.

I think I’ve won about 30. The Mrs. was still sitting at, well, zero wins.

30-0.

Don’t think poorly of her. The Mrs. is going from a standing start. At one point in college, I lived with eight other guys in a house, and nearly all of the time a chess game was going. I could generally beat everyone in the house by the end of the school year. It took a while for one guy, about four months. First, he wiped the floor with me, then he and I traded games. By the end of two semesters?

I usually won. I have played a lot more chess than The Mrs. I will say this, though, she’s smart as a whip, and when I give her position analysis and show her why she lost the game, she listens.

The Mrs. doesn’t listen like someone who wants to defend why they did what they did. She listens with the ears of someone who wants to learn, who wants to get better. There has been exactly zero ego in learning the game for her.

Did I mention that The Mrs. is competitive? Really competitive?

Ever notice that Tom Cruise has a tooth perfectly centered under his nose, like it’s one-half tooth too far over? Now you’ll never be able to unsee that. You’re welcome.

The last time The Mrs. and I played chess, we played three games. The first game, I crushed her. By the start of the mid-game, I was up on pieces and position. It was like a velociraptor in a room full of bacon-wrapped kittens covered in pudding. Then the next game. Again, by the mid-game, I was up. I was toying with her king like a teacup poodle lords over a pork chop, getting ready for checkmate.

Then, she moved.

Then, I moved. That’s the rule, right?

But my move made it so she had no legal moves left. The Mrs. wasn’t in check, but couldn’t move. I was winning, decisively.

But if she has no legal moves and her king isn’t in check?

It’s a draw. The score was now 30-0-1.

My blunder, her draw. The next game went, shall we say, a little differently. The start went okay. Then, in the mid-game? She took control and by the beginning of the end-game? I was breathing for air harder than Biden sniffing a teenager. Which Biden? Apparently any of them.

What mall did they get this picture taken at?

Then? I caught a break. The Mrs. was up on pieces and position, but I found a way out. I could keep her king in perpetual check.

The Mrs. moved, I moved, check.

Note: I couldn’t win, but I could make the game as annoying as an 8-year-old asking, “Are we there yet?”

Thankfully, there’s a rule for that. It’s called?

A draw.

We went from me constantly crushing her, to her lucking to a draw, to me grasping to find a way out of a game without a loss.

30-0-2.

Good for The Mrs.

And good for me. Now I’m going to have to work to bring my A-game. And Saturday nights just got better.

Why?

Would it be better if I could crush her in chess every evening like Oprah crushes couch cushions? Of course not.

I told my barber to cut my hair like he would for Tom Cruise. He made me sit on two phone books.

The best victories in life are going head to head with someone near your level in skill. Going all out. Pushing each other to be better. I mean, I can beat up any number of third graders. Honestly, I have no idea how many third graders I couldn’t beat up.

I could do it all day. It’s really not a challenge. Seriously, I could beat up lots of them.

But fourth graders? I mean, I could be at least the third-best player on the fourth-grade soccer team.

Life is challenge. Life is struggle.

And thank heavens for that. Or thank Heaven for that? (Stick with me – this isn’t a sermon.)

Speaking of Heaven, from the time I was just a little Wilder, I caused a *lot* of problems at church. I distinctly recall that I colored a picture of Jesus with His skin being bright purple. On purpose.

My only excuse is that I was five and had no glitter.

The Sunday school teacher came up to me and said, “Johnny, you know that Jesus wasn’t purple.”

I replied, “Well, please allow me to retort. Jesus is God, right? Well, if He wants to be purple, He can be purple.”

How can you argue with logic like that? Even kindergartners score some points now and then. I last saw my Sunday school teacher when I was thirty. She was really thrilled to see me. I think she was just happy I hadn’t started the Cult of the Glittery Purple Jesus. And, yes, all of those things really happened.

But back to heaven, or in this case, Heaven.

When they described Heaven to me in Sunday school, I was as appalled and indignant as a precocious five-year-old can be.

Sunday school teacher, describing Heaven: “You’re happy all the time. Nothing bad ever happens. You wake up and everything is fine.”

Five-year-old me thought: “Well, that sucks. It’s stupid. That sounds boring.” Even then, I was wise enough not to throw out a level-five heresy in the middle of Sunday school. Jesus might turn me purple or something. I’m certainly glad they didn’t teach me about Valhalla then, because that sounds much, much better than Heaven: Wake up. Fight and get soused and maybe die. Wake up. Repeat.

What did the Vikings call English villages? Chopping centers.

Sure you teach little kids the things that you think they like. But me as a little kid? Peace was the last thing on my mind. But I’m not alone.

When you look at the life of Jesus, He didn’t spend it sitting on fluffy pillows and eating Ding-Dongs®. Nope. If you think WWJD, remember, taking a whip and kicking vermin out of church is within the realm of permissible actions.

Jesus was clear in that: life is the struggle.

Life is not about the easy way out.
Life is not about running out the clock in the 20 years until you retire.
Life is not about being nice.

If you played your life like a video game, your goal isn’t to have a pleasant but non-threatening experience. You want to climb the mountain, fight for the fair maiden, and drink from the skull of your enemy. I want The Mrs. to be kick-ass at chess, so when I win, it means something.

It meant something to The Mrs. when I had to force a draw to save my sorry (rare NSFW word coming) ass.

That, my friends, is life. Life is the struggle.

And my bet at Heaven is that it’s more like this:

LEVEL ONE COMPLETE.

PREPARE FOR LEVEL TWO.

I started a job digging deeper and deeper holes – but that was boring on so many levels.

Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s live life.

Bring.

It.

On.

Take big bites.

Who is with me?

When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets.

“Have you paid your dues, Jack? Yes, sir. The check is in the mail.” – Big Trouble in Little China

Note to regular readers: This post took a rather strange turn, as they sometimes do. I had the topic picked, and then started writing, and found that the subject and evening led to a very atypical post. I’m going to leave this one as it is. I fully expect Monday’s post to be more of the usual stuff.

One of my favorite quotes was from the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, “When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets.” I read that line when I was 19 or so. I found it in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long. It was displayed in a little indy book store and it was one of those times that it seemed like the book found me, and not the other way around – it was the first thing I saw when I walked into the store.

The book store? That store stayed in business for about two months. The problem was that the store only had (and I’m not exaggerating) about three dozen different books. Looking back on it, I doubt that when the bookstore closed down that all the bills were paid – the landlord really should have seen that coming.

I thought about that phrase when I moved to Alaska with The Mrs. Moving to Alaska isn’t like moving from one state to another down in the Lower 48. The only real way out is by plane, and you’re not going unless you planned it. Were all my bills paid?

I made sure they were. Pa Wilder was quite old by that time. Before leaving for Alaska, I was quite clear in knowing that it was possible that when we moved was the last time I would ever see him alive. I made it a point then to tell him everything I needed to tell him, to share everything I could. I wanted him to be at peace, and I wanted to be at peace, too.

Prepping is for more than economic collapse.

Thankfully, Pa lived more than a decade after when we moved. He even visited us in Alaska and finally down into Houston when we moved back to the continental United States.

In my mind, there’s a part of me that always sees him in his prime. That was back when I was 12 and Pa was the father that would work 50 hours a week at the bank. Then Pa would come home and work my brother John (yes, that’s his name, our parents were classically uncreative) and me for 20 hours over the long summer weekend days hauling and stacking firewood for the cold winter nights up at the compound on Wilder Mountain.

When I thought of him, I always remembered that impossibly tall and competent man of my youth. When he visited Alaska I was fully six inches taller than him, and the strong arms that had swung a sledgehammer in a mighty arc to split wood with a steel wedge were now thin with age, his walk hesitant and slow.

But he was still dad.

One thing I always did, however, was try to leave each conversation with him as a complete conversation, a capstone if you will. I wanted to make sure that absolutely every time I talked to him I was leaving nothing unsaid. I wanted to make sure he knew exactly what I felt.

Pa Wilder lived twenty-five years longer than he expected. But around the time I was moving to Alaska, I could sense a change in him. The emails that he wrote gradually developed grammatical and spelling errors. This was a change. Previously, Pa had been as precise as an English-teaching nun in grammar and spelling.

It was a sign. Pa was declining.

Over time, the decline increased. I can still recall the last time I talked to him and he recognized me. After spending two days with him, he finally looked at me and said, “You’re John, aren’t you.”

Beyond that, we had some pleasant times, but I could tell that he didn’t recognize me. One time he looked at me and said, “Who are you?”

“I’m your son, John.”

There was not even a glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

When word came from my brother that Pa Wilder had passed (this was years and years ago) The Mrs., The Boy, Pugsley, and I went to his funeral. As The Mrs. and I had a private moment between all of the orchestrated family events, she asked me, “Is there anything you need to share? Are you doing alright?”

To be clear – I did miss and do miss Pa. But I had made sure that everything that I ever needed to say to him had been said. My conscience was clear. I know that, whenever he had a clear moment, he knew that I loved him. And I knew he loved me.

I had no unresolved issues.

It’s one thing to read the phrase, “When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets,” and another to understand it as time passes and wisdom increases. When Pa Wilder passed, I understood it. I looked deep into myself and understood that all the bills were paid. I had no regrets.

The Mrs. had a different experience entirely with the passing of her father several months ago. Due to COVID restrictions, he had spent the last months of his life with absolutely no physical contact, no presence of his family. He had been recovering from surgery in a nursing home, and never recovered enough to be discharged.

For month after month, he spent his time alone, with nothing but phone calls from those he loved.

The Mrs. was very upset about this. Heck, The Mrs. is still upset about this – the process of paying those last bills was cruelly interrupted. She had more things to say to him – and I understand that. There are things I’d dearly like to say to Ma Wilder, but that ship lifted too early, and now those bills can never be paid, at least not in full.

I try now to make each meeting, each contact with those around me that I love one where they know exactly where they stand with me, and vice versa. The idea of continuing my life with those bills, or leaving those bills with someone else isn’t something I want.

To be very clear: what brought this topic to mind wasn’t anything in particular, just the thought that this has been a helpful philosophy for me. I do know that the future is uncertain, so I try to live my life so I don’t have those regrets, and try to manage my relationships so that there’s never anything left unsaid.

The check is in the mail.

Purpose, Virtue, Starlets, And Inexplicable Comments About Italy

“I disagree with what you said about the underlying theme of chapter eight in this book. It’s really not about man’s struggle with double-sided tape. It’s a metaphor for the Mesopotamian social hierarchy during the Bronze Age.” – Homestarrunner

The easiest way to get gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals? Kleptomania.

One theme I keep returning to in this blog is purpose. I have a friend (you’re shocked, I know) and we talk from time to time. One observation that he’s made is that they’ve done studies of people who have won medals in competitions like the Olympics®. You’d think that the person who was happiest was the person who won gold.

It’s not. It’s not the person who won silver, either.

It’s the person who won bronze.

Third place? Well, they know it wasn’t a fluke that they didn’t win. There is that “second place” guy who pops that illusion bubble. But they made it to the big show, and, heck, they’re third. Not bad!

Bronze is the Libertarian Party of medals.

The person who wins silver is usually very, very unhappy. Why? Every minute of the day they have to wonder:

What if I had worked just a little harder each day?
What if I had listened to my coach?
What if I hadn’t spent the night before the Olympic© finals at the strip club drinking tequila shooters with Crystal and Svetlana?

Little things like that begin to nag at them. Plus they get Brady Cake:

Tom Brady is so old . . . he won his first Super Bowl® while the world was still in Standard Definition.

So, gold medal winners should be happy, right?

Some really aren’t happy. They’ve climbed the mountain. They’ve spent, in some cases, tens of thousands of hours in practice at the highest level. They’ve skipped going to parties when others were having fun. They lived, in some cases, like monks to climb to the greatest levels of human performance.

Some of them get there and ask . . .

Is this all there is?

Those folks who ask that question were working for the wrong purpose. Their idea wasn’t to be the World PEZ® Flicking Champion, it was someone else’s idea.

So they went with it.

Don’t say this three times fast.

You can see those folks, especially a few years after the Olympics®. They’re the ones that are on the third DUI or are the 4’6” gymnast that looks like they’ve swallowed a refrigerator. Which, I will say, does make tumbling easier. If you call rolling “tumbling.” Meghan McCain does, especially if it’s toward a buffet.

So, what about those people who win a gold medal and are just fine? What’s different?

They have purpose. Their sport was only a part of their purpose, and was only a part of what drove them. They are centered, and the biggest part of their purpose isn’t achievement. Achievement is a byproduct.

The folks who win and don’t self-destruct have a purpose, and a purpose rooted in virtue.

To be clear, very, very, very clear:

Virtue does not guarantee victory. At all.

Virtue (and a purpose rooted in virtue) just makes victory bearable.

Why do so many early twentysomethings mentally implode when they achieve fame and stardom and immense wealth? That’s an easy question – they find themselves in a world with no real restraints. The real question is why don’t more starlets become headlines? I’m pretty sure Miley Cyrus isn’t in a good mental place.

In Europe, she’s known as Kilometery Cyrus.

In one respect, not being wealthy and famous is a great substitute for willpower: you can’t end up dead in a hotel room in Thailand surrounded by heroin, empty take-out boxes of food, bottles of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum, and vats of industrial-strength skin cream if you have to get to your steady job.

A mortgage and car payments have probably saved a lot of dads uncomfortable phone calls from the Italian Government as to why their 22-year-old was found “improving” the Sistine Chapel painting. Thankfully, back then they charged the fines in something called “lira”, which is just like money but is instead made of colorful Christmas wrapping paper.

An aside, things to trust Italians on:

Food.
Wine.
Car body design.

Things not to trust Italians on:

Anything you need tomorrow.
Anything electronic or electric.
Anything where the oil or engine coolant is supposed to stay on the inside.
Anything remotely resembling fiscal discipline.

Italians are great at soccer – you change sides halfway through.

And, apparently, never trust John Wilder to wander off on a tangent on a Friday post. I’ll get back to virtue and purpose, and promise not to wander too far again this post.

I’ve written several posts about Virtue. It’s been a common theme. Here are a few:

Kardashians, Hairy Bikinis, Elvis, Wealth, and Virtue

Roman Virtues and Western Civilization, Complete with Monty Python

Ben Franklin and his Thirteen Virtues

Why Character Just Might Be A Better Indicator Of Marriage Stability Than What Her Butt Looks Like

Regrets? Don’t Regret Anything, Unless You Want Me To Slap You When You Are Old.

So, have a purpose. Live your virtue. And when you have high achievement, when you win the gold, when you achieve amazing business success? You’re ready to deal with it.

I’ve heard of a village in Africa where they’re dealing with a drought and thirst. I hope they “Get Well Soon.”

But let’s say that you don’t win the gold. You don’t have amazing business success. Virtue allows you to be ready to deal with that, too.

Or you could just win a bronze medal and have a mortgage?

Nah, go for the virtue. You’ll eventually pay the mortgage off.

Studies Show: Hanging Around Victims Sucks

“Yes, sir! That’s exactly who I am and what I am, sir. A victim, sir!” – A Clockwork Orange

Someone in London is stabbed every 37 seconds. Poor guy – he’s got to be getting tired of that.

One of the greatest sources of trouble in my life has been . . . victims. You know the type. They never create the situation they’re in. Every bit of trouble that the victim has ever had has been somebody else’s fault. Pa Wilder was the first to tell me to not find faults – he was horrible at geology.

I’ve even dealt with relatively well-off victims. They had nice houses, but the houses could have been so much nicer if only they weren’t being kept down. People have done them wrong. Generally, if you listen long enough, you’ll hear the list of every bad thing that happened to them.

And I mean “happened to” since nothing, no matter how small or large, is ever their fault. Even if they’re lazy, they’ll say that’s not their fault – they’ll say it walks in the family. As a general rule, when I find a victim, I steer as far away from them as possible. They’re dangerous in several ways.

If you’re not aware of what they’re doing, their attitude can be poisonous. They’re the guy at work who complains that the company they work for makes a profit and that their share is never enough. I avoid them because if I’m not part of their pity-party, soon enough I’ll be in the crosshairs as someone who has done them wrong. As we’ll see – that’s a dangerous place to be.

What does a vegan zombie eat? Graaaaains.

Yesterday I read about a study that was released in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. No, I don’t have a subscription, but I did read about it here (LINK). The study defined a character trait that the researchers named Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV). TIV was defined as “an ongoing feeling that the self is a victim, which is generalized across many kinds of relationships.”

TIV? Sounds like living with an intolerable martyr to me.

The researchers found four factors that were pretty much always there with the insufferable losers:

Moral Elitism
Lack of Empathy
Need for Recognition
Unable to Stop Thinking About Their Problems

This wasn’t sometimes there – it was always there. Imagine living a life where you were torn by these sorts of feelings on a consistent basis. Certainly, I’ve written about it before – these traits are 100% the traits of . . . a Leftist.

What does it take to start a riot to destroy a city? Certainty you are right. Lack of empathy for those individuals that own businesses or property. A need to be seen as being virtuous – they must be visible.

Congratulations! You’ve made it through 343 months of 2020! Only 11 more months to go!

And lastly, they cannot stop thinking about every little thing that has ever been done wrong to them which in the end causes them to be filled with nothing but hatred. And hatred has been popular with the Left all year – it’s quite the rage.

Because they constantly felt like victims, the researchers found that the TIV idiots:

Were more likely to make another person suffer loss, even when it didn’t help them personally.
Felt more intense negative emotions, and
Felt entitled to behave in an immoral fashion.

Now, the last three bullet points are a lot more normal. If someone broke into your house and stole your antique yak knickers, you’d probably experience each very one of those last three bullet points – they broke into your house – you want them to pay. What’s not normal is this is the way that people who have TIV feel this way all of the time.

They’ll call him the Grim Sweeper. (Not my meme – as found on the ‘net)

TIV isn’t just the hatred of people, it’s the hatred of all of the systems that those people created. Ever notice that the victim class generally intensely hates the United States?

Why?

Because they want everyone to suffer loss, and they feel that any means whatsoever are justified, especially since they are morally superior. They don’t want to watch the United States fail – they want to watch it burn.

But this victimhood isn’t just a hatred focused outside of self. TIV is, at its core, the hatred of self.

Thankfully, there’s good news:

TIV is a choice.

I have and do maintain that many of the things about ourselves are entirely under our control. Attitude is one. We can always control the way that we feel about something.

I’m not saying they keep the thermostat control hot at my in-laws, but two hobbits came and tossed a ring into their living room.

The start of being a victim is allowing it to happen. I was fortunate. When I was feeling sorry for myself, my parents and brother absolutely wouldn’t allow it. Was it tough love sometimes? Sure. But at least in the Wilder house, I was mocked mercilessly when I tried to play the victim.

That was one of the best gifts ever. Because they wouldn’t let me be the victim, some of the results were:

I felt my destiny was in my own hands. My actions help to create my future.
I was responsible for my own successes, along with the help I’d had.
More importantly, I was responsible for my own failures. This was generally a solo trip. My successes generally had help – my failures were generally due to my own weakness.
Revenge was less important than getting better and winning my own game.

There were some downsides to this. When everyone is playing one game, and you’re playing another sometimes people don’t understand your motivation. If their goal is a brand new car, and your goal is no debt, you’re not playing the same game at all. They see you driving a ten or fifteen-year-old car and think, “Weirdo.”

One of the best examples I ever saw of not being a victim was at a corporate training session. We had discussed victimhood, and the trainer had a large metal pin-on button that said “VICTIM” on it. When one of the participants in the training session leveled a (very valid) complaint about a company practice, the instructor tried to give that participant the “VICTIM” button. The participant refused it.

I tried to steal his boots, but they wouldn’t fit me. I guess those boots were made for Walken.

It was a great moment to watch. The trainer didn’t know what to do, but it was clear to everyone in the class that particular participant was not a VICTIM.

But it’s easy to not be a victim:

Moral Elitism Understand that each of us falls short of our own moral goals. Each of us.
Lack of Empathy Have empathy for your fellow man, but not a poisonous generosity that destroys civilizations.
Need for Recognition Understand that recognition is fickle. It may be the best thing you ever do for mankind will be utterly unknown. Be good with that.
Unable to Stop Thinking About Their Problems Give it a rest. As Twain said: “Drag your thoughts away from your troubles: by the ears, by the heels, or any other way, so you manage it.”

Yes, sometimes bad things happen to us.

How long we wallow in victimhood, however, is entirely up to us.

Luck And (Sort Of) $20

“What’s this, then? ‘Romanes eunt domus’? People called Romanes, they go, the house?” – The Life of Brian

When Clint was taking pottery class, before he put his ceramics into the oven, he’d snarl: “Go ahead, bake my clay.”

I went on a long-ish walk today. Walking is fun, gets me outdoors, and allows me to feel the wind on my scalp. Not that being bald is bad – when I was younger I used to play chess with bald old men at my hometown’s park. It’s really hard to find 32 of them all at once, though.

I went on the same walk yesterday. The thought came to my mind, hey, I’m going to find a $20 bill when I go walking soon.

And today? As I had just finished 1.56 miles (still heading out) I looked in the ditch by the side of the country road. Could it be? Was it?

It was.

No, not another Bud Light® can. It was my $20 dollar bill! I’m not making any of this up. Here’s a picture.

I got home and found that someone ripped the center pages out of my dictionary. It went from bad to worse.

Now it’s not the worst thing I’ve found inert, piled in the weeds next to a crumpled Bud Light™ can – that would be the Ex. But it wasn’t exactly a full $20 bill, either.

I sent a picture of it to my friend. “Looks like you’ve got about $9.50 there, John.”

Yup. It is a real $20 bill. Just not a complete $20 bill. And since you need to have 51% of a piece of paper currency to trade it in – it’s not $9.50, it’s $0.00, although I’m sure that in Pennsylvania (or Wisconsin, or Georgia or…), my 45% of a $20 dollar bill would magically transform at 3AM into a full 55%.

So, was I lucky?

Yup, I was.

Why would I deprive an Uber driver of a chance to take part in a marathon?

Although we talk about all of the right things to do with your money (or bullets, or gold, or PEZ®) one thing you have to factor in is luck.

Pa Wilder, generally, did it all the “right way” – saved money, owned his home free and clear for years, bought his cars with cash, and stayed out of debt. About 25 years after he retired, he was broke – he had spent most of his savings, so my brother John (yes, my brother’s name really is John, too) kicked in and helped Pa along. Pa didn’t spend it all on pantyhose and elephant rides – generally, he just lived a very quiet life.

Then there was relative “B”. They went from one cash shortage to another for almost their entire lives – not because of any sort of fault – they were frugal and worked hard. In one particular cash crunch, they ended up having to sell cattle to pay an emergency bill. Then, one day, a group of geologists came on to their land just as they’re ready to retire. The oil company drilled a few wells and started sending them checks.

How much were all those checks worth?

Enough to allow them to get a bulldozer to push over the house they were living in. Honestly, they didn’t need a bulldozer since the only thing holding the house together were mice holding hands with termites.

I enjoy testing microphone/speaker combinations. Have any feedback for me?

And enough was left over to build an entirely new house.

It was . . . luck.

As humans, we plan. We can’t help it. And we observe patterns: not getting married until you’re ready, finishing school, not getting divorced, saving money, being thrifty, and investing are things that generally lead to financial stability.

Choice of career is also important – there are few composers of 17^th and 18^th century-style music that are wealthy. But for those composers that are? If it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it.

But we should all take a step back and understand that the future isn’t based entirely on skill – it’s also based on luck. And, yes, I know what you’re saying – the same thing I normally think – quoting Seneca (the dead Roman): “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

I try to live my life by those words.

But there’s still just plain luck.

Did Romans kept fit by doing Pontius Pilates?

I am normally that lucky guy. Seriously – I started writing down a list of incredibly good luck that I’ve had in my life. It was a very long list. If I took a hard look at the list, sure, some of it happened because I was clever enough, or fast enough, or strong enough, or just so very pretty – too damn pretty to die, some might say.

But some of those coincidences that happened to me were none of that. The opportunities were so amazingly rare, and yet, there I was. It’s not just me who has observed this. A good friend once described me like this: “John, if you were walking down the street and fell down into a pile of gum, you’d come back up with a $100 bill stuck to your forehead.”

Part of luck, however, is just understanding that some days are your day – nothing can go wrong. And other days? Nothing will go right, even if you’ve prepared wonderfully and meticulously.

Yes, I believe that Seneca is right, and you prepare as hard as you can for those days and seize the ever-loving snot out of those days. So when it’s my day? I try to push my luck as far and as fast as I can. The Romans had this one sniffed out, too: Fortis Fortuna adiuvat. Fortune favors the bold.

What kind of aspirin do fortune-tellers take? Medium strength.

When it’s not my day? I just slooooooow down.

What I really have seen is that people who are in great moods have . . . the best luck. Those same people often find opportunities where others don’t see them.

Maybe I’m just an optimist. I think great things are going to happen to me, so, they do. When I was out walking on the deck when it was raining and one foot slipped and I did the splits? The kind of splits that you feel some muscle in your left leg streeeeeeeetch, and then feel that same muscle “give” because I haven’t bent like that since I was in high school?

Not lucky? Right?

I can’t be sure. Stretching my leg like a pretty, pretty ballerina sure fired me up to get walking to build that muscle back up. And it’s working just after a few days. And I found this neat $20 bill.

Or at least part of one.

Weird, huh?

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: 56 Days To The Last Election Ever In The United States

“It appears we will be required to ignite the midnight petroleum, sir.” – ST: TNG

It’s all fun and games until it hits midnight. And we’re getting pretty close.

People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology. Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
Open War.

We are at step 9. Step 9. is, of course, two minutes to midnight on the clock. Violence continues to be commonly justified by local and state authorities.

In this issue: Front Matter – What Is A Civil War? – Violence And Censorship Update – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – 56 Days Until The Last Election – Links

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report. These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month. I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues. Also, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern.

What Is A Civil War?

Multiple comments that I’ve had, both in the comment section at the blog, as well as in email and even text message asked the question – what happens to the index this month. The answer is that we’re still at a 9 out of 10. The only thing remaining to take us to a 10 is a body count. That’s because I’m using this (admittedly academic definition by Doyle and Sambanis in 2000) as my definition for the existence of a civil war:

The war has caused more than 1,000 battle deaths. This war hasn’t yet done so. Is 1,000 an aribitrary number? This is the only criteria not yet met.
The war represents a challenge to the sovereignty of an internationally recognized state. I think it’s clear that Antifa® and BLM™ want nothing less than the dismantling of the existing state and construction of a Marxist Utopia©. The fact that they are aided and abetted by fellow travelers in district attorney offices, mayoral offices, and congressional offices doesn’t mean that they aren’t communist revolutionaries fighting against freedom from the inside.
The war occurs within the recognized boundary of that state. This is an easy one.
The war involves the state as one of the principal combatants. One of. Not the only one. Ask a policeman in Portland if they feel that they’re in control.
The rebels are able to mount an organized military opposition to the state and to inflict significant casualties on the state. It states casualties, not deaths. And that also makes this an easy one to check off. Organization discussion is directly below in the Violence And Censorship Update.

I list all of the five criteria for a simple reason – to show that the only thing between us right now and a full blown, internationally recognized definition of civil war is the number of body bags we have yet to fill. When I started this update last year, I was expecting things to move faster than you expected. I did not expect things to move faster than I expected.

They have.

Violence And Censorship Update

Violence this month is obvious. The killings have started. Outside of the increasing violence tied directly to police standing down because they have no support which I talked about last month, bullets are now flying in the “mostly peaceful” protests.

Outside of the CHAZ murders, where two teenagers were killed, much of the violence has been peripheral. I moved the index up to nine out of ten when killings became commonplace. As near as I can tell, the killings directly associated with the Antifa™ and BLM® action is probably somewhere short of 100.

But two of those deaths are deaths that Antifa© cannot abide. In Kenosha, I wrote about Kyle Rittenhouse’s clear self-defense shooting against both a pedophile and a wife beater, and alleged self-defense shooting against a person who was (by the film I saw) drawing down on him. You can read it here – reviews say it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, but I’d suggest my signature on my divorce papers from my first wife was better (Have The Kenosha Riots Given The Right Our Rosa Parks?).

From my vantage point, Kyle Rittenhouse is a hero. But Antifa™ cannot let that stand. At all. It’s my estimate that out of rage, the killing in Portland as well as the attempted murder by car in Portland were “revenge” hits on people wearing paraphernalia of the Right. If you read reports that break down the killing (HERE) and other experiences (HERE) in Portland, it becomes clear that Antifa® is using military discipline, and is broken up into a military command structure. (H/T to Vox Day (LINK) and Mike at Cold Fury (LINK))

Antifa™ is a dedicated group. They have undergone a brainwashing and are a religious cult – no Jim Jones Kool-Aid® drinking cultist could compete. I wrote about that here (Why Would Anyone Become A Leftist?), and stand by it. Antifa® and BLM© stand against everything that has made America wonderful, rich, and prosperous. And they are fanatics.

I’m not sure if you know what they have in mind for people that don’t agree with them. It isn’t pleasant. The idea is that there is a pure society coming, and the way to get to that new society is to eliminate everything that doesn’t fit. Which almost certainly includes you. But don’t worry – they want to torture people to death to show the remaining people how wonderful the future communist utopia will be. See? You serve a purpose in their minds.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time. They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings. As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that lead to the index. On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

July was generally better than June, which is like saying that World War I was “better” than World War II. Let’s go to the graphs. In general, I’ve used bikini graphs in the past. Given where we are, I’m a bit more somber. Here are the graphs, without bikinis.

Violence:

Up is more violent. June pegged the scale of violence. This measure because the way it’s constructed, doesn’t go higher than 300. It’s lower again this month despite clear assassinations by the Left. Does that mean it’s less violent this month? Certainly riots are down, but the measure is a measure of how people feel about the violence. Since it’s so common now, it’s not spiking. That is, in my opinion, very bad – we’re getting used to this nonsense.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable. Instability is down, slightly. I expect September and October to be down more, since voting generally has a calming effect and all emotions are focused there. After that? All bets are off.

Economic:

Down indicates worse economic conditions, are down slightly. Again, we’re nowhere near the bottom. I expect that to drop off in October. Maybe to historic levels. But I could be wrong?

Illegal Aliens:

Down is good, in theory. This is a statistic showing border apprehensions by the Border Patrol. Oops! This metric is now nearly at the highest it’s been in years. As the Wuflu® hits Mexico, the Mexicans are deciding to head north again.

56 Days Until The Last Election

I firmly believe the United States has had stolen elections in the past. But the nice thing about the Electoral College is? It makes it really, really hard to steal an election. Impossible? No. Hard? Yes.

Every single person in every graveyard in Chicago, California, and Queens can vote for a Democrat, and it doesn’t matter. The Electoral College adds legitimacy to an election by breaking corruption at the state lines. That’s one reason the Left hates it. It makes elections hard to steal. In my state, my vote doesn’t really matter – my state will go for Trump even if every person in every grave, ever, votes Democrat.

Mail-in voting changes all of that.

Yes, this was one of my favorite original memes that I created, but a new version. Still valid.

Stalin has been quoted as saying, “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”

It’s hard to cheat in a Red State. You have to steal zillions of counties. It’s easy to cheat in a Blue State – you just have to cheat in the big cities. If everyone in Chicago voted Trump, Illinois would still go 60% for whatever Democrat was opposing him. But with mail-in voting?

Examples I have seen show the party on the outside of the envelope. How hard would it be to casually “lose” a few thousand votes from envelopes that had a big, fat, R on the outside? Or a few thousand from precincts that consistently vote Right? Not hard at all. This is on top of demonstrated voter fraud in Left cities where poll workers were caught on camera dumping ballot after ballot into the box on election day.

If mail-in voting passes? We’ve had our last election day. From now on? It’s selection day – selection of the candidate that the Left wants.

Thanks to the innovation of mail-in voting, you don’t even have to bring the corpses to the polls! What else will modern technology come up with?

In a further, ominous sign, the Media® has been setting up the idea that Trump will win on election night in a convincing manner, but will lose as the mail-in ballots are counted. This is particularly horrific.

If you knew which six counties you needed in close states, could you game the Electoral College? Absolutely. You could have boxes of ballots pre-staged in Philadelphia, or Milwaukee, or Cleveland to flip the results. Simple. Want Florida to turn blue? Just found a box with 25,475 Biden votes in Miami.

Don’t think the Left wouldn’t try it. They would do anything to win the election, since they’re contemplating electing a person who couldn’t navigate a corn maze with more than two stalks standing.

If mail-in voting is made the law of the land? Expect that this is the final election, ever, that won’t be a simple selection of the candidate that best fits the desire of the Left. Sure, there will be some token people on the Right elected, but they’ll mainly be people who believe in real conservative values, like only allowing 1,000,000 illegals in a year, and only allowing 7,000,000 people a year in on H1B visas, and restricting anything but a muzzle loading black powder rifle, like our founders intended.

Oh, wait, conservatives have conserved nothing! They just pick the values from the Left from ten or twenty years ago, and defend those until the death.

LINKS

That’s a bad ending to a video game . . .

All are from Ricky:

MSM message: alt-Right continues the march to civil war….

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1316052/proud-boys-group-brawl-antifa-protests-kalamazoo-michigan/

https://www.the-sun.com/news/1354432/portland-brawl-breaks-out-proud-boys-antifa-fight/

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/09/03/schmidt-trump-supporters-want-to-see-a-second-civil-war-in-this-country/

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/08/30/white-supremacists-are-invading-american-cities-to-incite-a-civil-war/

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/sandia-labs-goes-nuclear-employee-who-sparked-internal-revolt-over-critical-race-theory

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/americans-sense-something-is-wrong-gun-sales-up-72_08272020

…a challenge that must be met with force…

https://jonathanturley.org/2020/08/18/berkeley-columnist-calls-for-violent-resistance/

https://www.dailycal.org/2020/08/12/this-war-cant-be-civil/

http://thesaker.is/will-hillary-and-the-dems-get-the-civil-war-they-are-trying-to-provoke/

…for abstract justice…

https://theweek.com/articles/931090/are-bread-riots-coming-america

https://nypost.com/2020/08/11/black-lives-matter-organizer-calls-chicago-looting-reparation/

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/08/27/906642178/one-authors-argument-in-defense-of-looting

…and with concrete action…

https://summit.news/2020/08/14/black-lives-matter-mob-demands-white-people-give-up-their-homes/

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-blm-protesters-shot-homeowners-while-marching-through-rural-pennsylvania-town

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/battle-zones-america/

This revolution WILL be televised, as documentaries…

https://theduran.com/steven-turley-new-civil-war-being-fought-on-three-fronts-video/

https://theduran.com/the-second-american-civil-war-is-here-part-i-the-combatants-video/

https://theduran.com/the-second-american-civil-war-part-ii-strategy-of-the-blues-video/

https://theduran.com/the-second-civil-war-part-iii-update-dr-steve-turley-largely-confirms-video/

https://theduran.com/the-utopia-of-democrat-activism-video/

…an unending stream of gripping short-attention-span clips from the front lines…

https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/status/1300955946521432064

(Scroll here for more video gems:) https://twitter.com/The_Real_Fly/

….and an explosion of editorials…

https://www.columbiadailyherald.com/story/opinion/columns/2020/09/02/rowland-civil-war-real-possibility/5690696002/

https://themichiganstar.com/2020/08/28/commentary-in-kenosha-the-seeds-of-civil-war/

https://greensboro.com/rockingham_now/opinion/ending-the-civil-war/article_a2f83f72-eaef-11ea-88b4-e7bcbc8a60ec.html

https://signalscv.com/2020/09/jonathan-kraut-an-undeclared-civil-war-in-america/

https://www.niagara-gazette.com/opinion/singer-promoting-a-new-civil-war-in-america/article_399450b1-7aee-5a47-abd1-8555b616d0cf.html

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/portland-killing-trump-caravan-civil-war-20200830.html

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/kenosha-trump-kyle-rittenhouse-portland-antifa-20200901.html

https://www.newspressnow.com/opinion/editorials/stop-a-civil-war-before-it-starts/article_57576526-e7d3-11ea-a6c0-f31f4893dc90.html

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2020/08/20/thursdays-headlines-armed-for-the-civil-war-edition/

https://prospect.org/politics/americas-civil-war/

https://www.independent.com/2020/06/14/an-american-civil-war/

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/the-thin-veneer-of-american-civilization/

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-kenosha-wisconsin-unrest-violence-shooting-20200826-m3e7zcqg7faxxou2xhqywmsobe-story.html

And as one (now-dead) Antifa guard claims to have fired the latest shot heard ’round the world…

https://www.insider.com/portland-shooting-suspect-said-saw-civil-war-coming-2020-9

…a newspaper founded during the last Civil War won’t be around to cover any new one…

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/09/04/trump-and-stars-and-stripes-attacking-american-icon-column/5706859002/

Don’t Run Out The Clock On Life.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” – Blade Runner

Why haven’t aliens been here more frequently? They saw the reviews – one star.

One of the benefits of living in Modern Mayberry is that there are no shortage of places where you can contribute. After being assistant peewee coach for The Boy’s football (the one men play, not the game for socialist European women) I volunteered to be head coach for Pugsley’s team. The first season, I was less than spectacular. And saying I was less than spectacular is being generous.

Let me be clear – when you’re coaching third and fourth graders who can’t even calculate the orbital dynamics of the planet Mercury because they don’t know relativity and keep getting the wrong answer using Newtonian mechanics, it’s the coaching. The kids are, more or less, equally inept and equally talented. You put the big kids on the line and the fast kids as backs and receivers and wonder what to do with the small, slow kids.

As a first year coach? I was like a small, slow kid. I’m not sure we won a game my first year. That wasn’t the kids; that season was on me – it was all my fault. I’ll admit I have faults, and so will The Mrs. The Mrs. says I have two main faults – that I don’t listen and some other one.

In Europe they call it 30.48cm ball.

I remember the first game of my second pee-wee football season as clearly as if it were yesterday. The offense was on the field. We had just made a first down. There was a minute and twenty seconds (seventeen metric minutes) left on the clock. I did the math – thirty seconds a play, four downs . . . and they were out of time outs.

Wait a minute, I thought. We were up by five points. If we just ran three plays and didn’t fumble the ball and let them score a touchdown – we would win!

All we had to do was run out the clock. Our only enemy was time.

I told the quarterback to just kneel down when the center hiked the ball to him. For a second, he looked confused – we had played the whole game being aggressive on offense, and we’d racked up 28 points. Then it clicked in his head – he was a really smart 4^th grader. All he had to do was not fumble.

He had figured out what caught me almost by surprise: we just had to run out the clock. Spoiler alert: we won. Running out the clock in a football game is a valuable strategy.

I was going to tell another football joke, but it had an offensive line.

How does this translate off the field?

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post – I use a planner. Some of the things that are on my daily to-do list are straightforward. Plan to take over the world. Remember to feed the kraken. But I recently added one:

Are You Running Out The Clock?

You might think that’s a weird thing to think about every day when you go into work, and maybe it is. In the crazy, deflating and inflating economy of 2020, a job might be something that’s required for survival. But a job also might be something you’re going through the motions on and running the clock, and your life out every day watching the seconds tick away until 5pm.

Now, don’t get me wrong – if it’s important to get money to live, fulfillment isn’t the goal – feeding the family is first. In 2020 and 2021 jobs will be hard to find, so if you’re bored but have a family to feed – FEED YOUR FAMILY AND STAY UNTIL 5PM.

I quit my job at the helium plant – I will NOT be spoken to in that tone of voice.

But what happens when a job or your life becomes another exercise in running out the clock and you don’t have to worry about feeding the family?

That’s not a win.

Humans were made to be the most multi-purpose machine in the history of the planet. We’re essentially the Swiss Army® animal. Where other animals inhabit a specific niche or even several niches on the planet, humans alone have consciously gone from the bottom of the sea to the surface of the moon. We can run, swim, climb, think and even make new elements while we try to figure out how to harness the power of a star. We can then rip atoms apart just for fun, and watch C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. And all of this before breakfast.

You know that in freshman English William at least got a B on the Romeo and Juliet section.

Then we can write a sonnet, or, as Shakespeare observed in Hamlet:

What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty. In form and moving how express and admirable. In action how like an angel. In apprehension how like a god!

The beauty of the world.

The paragon of animals.

Humans are amazing. Shakespeare really got that. If I live my entire life, I’m not sure I can string together six sentences that are so amazing and so understand just how amazing a creature humans are.

Then Will followed up with this:

And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Four hundred years ago, the Bard was ahead of me. It’s amazing to be human. We have great capabilities. But then? Hamlet goes and decides he wants to run out the clock.

But we’re not made for running out the clock – that’s why Hamlet is a tragedy. Hamlet was only thirty years old. He had grown weary of life, and he didn’t even have the excuse of having met my ex-wife.

We don’t get a deposit back for bringing our bodies back in great condition after we’re done with them. Let me be clear: we have a one use rental on these things. You need to use your body and your life like you stole it. My left hip hurts at least once a month. A lot.

My vacuum has Roomba®-tiod arthritis.

Good. I popped it out coaching those peewee football players. If I get arthritis there? It’s like a gray hair in my beard – I’ve earned it. I want the coroner to look at my body at the end and say: “I’m glad he’s not donating these organs. He used all of them up. How do you wear out a bellybutton? This guy did.”

I’ve seen a “running out the clock” mentality in my own family. When Pa Wilder started to get older, one thing I noticed is that his life seemed to revolve not around achieving, but around existing. He walked. He ate. He watched TV. He took his medications.

But he ceased doing anything of meaning. He ceased fighting. I’ll admit, people deserve a rest from time to time. But even in old age, even if disabled, and even if depressed – you can do something.

There is no time in your life where you can’t matter.

Running out the clock isn’t a goal – unless it’s a peewee football game.

How will you make a difference today?

Why The Left Fears The Right, And Why The Right Will Win

“Oh, haven’t you noticed? We’ve been sharing our culture with you all morning.” – 300

When I was a five or so, my parents had horses. One of the horses had a foal (baby horse for you city folk), and Pa Wilder brought the foal and the mare (momma horse) into the barn – it was brutally cold, and the barn was much warmer. They brought me down to see the foal. It was young and awkward as new horses are.

Inside the stall was a series of closely spaced rails in a square, about four feet by six feet.

I asked, “What’s that for, Pa?”

“Well, when the foal is in here, he’ll find that he can’t walk across the bars. His hooves won’t quite fit. That will train him so he won’t do that when he gets older.”

Even at five, I had seen cattle guards and knew cows wouldn’t try to cross them. But here was a horse.

From Library of Congress.

“Won’t he try to jump over the cattle guard, Pa?”

“Some horses, the smart ones, will figure out and a cattle guard won’t work on them. But most don’t. Heck, you can just paint parallel lines on an asphalt road and some horses won’t try to cross them.”

The little training bars were a device, a device to train the horse that he was in a prison made up of parallel bars on the ground. In that, the horse restricted his own freedom.

In the last post (Money, Power, Politics, and Soros), I discussed the difference between Money and Power. I actually finished most of the last post before I wrote the conclusion. Money and Power as described through most of the post were entirely materialistic concepts. Ending it with just that discussion wasn’t right, since the theme of my writing is often to balance the material with the concepts of spirit and virtue. We live in a material world, but the reason we live is for a purpose greater than this moment.

Freedom isn’t important to either Money or Power; Freedom is actually the enemy of both Money and Power. Throughout most of recorded history in the West, when either Money or Power get too out of balance, there is a backlash, and Freedom eventually wins.

It has for thousands of years.

And it will again. I firmly believe that the destiny of the West is in the hands of those who love Freedom, especially in the United States.

Why?

The Left is utterly afraid of the Right. Though they put forward a great front – they are shaking. The American people on the Right compose the largest potential army in the history of the world.

The numbers:

There are at least 400,000,000 guns in private hands in the United States by one estimate. That seems right.

There are 800,000 or so cops. Assume they have two guns each. Heck, assume they have three. Round up. Three million guns. The Military in the United States owns about 4.4 million guns. Round up. That’s a total of less than 10 million guns in the hands of the United States government or other governmental authorities. And that assumes that they stand with the government, which is questionable at best.

Assume only 35% of the American public owns guns, a number I think is very low. Call it 100,000,000 people. Assume that those owners skew mostly Right – 80/20? That’s 80,000,000 on the Right. Let’s do 80/20 again on those that will not stand for a communist uprising in the United States. That’s 16,000,000 Americans ready to stand in the breach. The largest army in the history of the world (so far) were the United States armed forces in 1945: 12,000,000 Americans under arms.

I’ll state it again: American people on the Right have the potential to compose the largest army in the history of the world. Period.

People on the Right, men and women, also have more and better training for field conditions. I’d put The Mrs. up against most people on the Left if it came to a rural setting, because Leftists have no idea that trees are even made of wood, and I doubt that many on the Right will want to make the Stalingrad mistake and get caught in the cities as Leftists consume themselves. How many people on the Right have their homes on the market to escape from Minneapolis? From Seattle? From any of dozens of cities where they know that they no longer belong?

I have no idea. But they’d be fools to stay.

And even though we have the numbers on our side, there’s more good news. We don’t even need overwhelming numerical superiority:

How many apostles peacefully changed the religion of Europe?
How many Spartans defended all of Western Civilization at Thermopylae?

“But John,” you say, “most all of the people in your examples died for their cause.” Yes, they did. And we remember them for that, because they changed the world. Thousands of years before Robert Heinlein said it, they knew the truth of his quote: “You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.”

Besides, everyone is going to die. Is it better to be a Leonidas or a St. Peter?

Obviously, it is.

Don’t be like Ephialtes (LINK).

We outgun the Left. We have Truth, capital T, on our side. The other day Vox Day had this inspiring clip at his blog (LINK).

It was a good clip, and one I’d forgotten. So we watched the movie again tonight – it’s one that could not be made by Hollywood® today. That clip also makes the point I tried to make earlier much more eloquently than I ever could.

The Black Riots Lives Matter riots are demoralizing to people of good character. This is intentional. The riots are meant to make you feel alone. The riots are meant to make you feel that the Right has already lost.

The Right has not lost.

How did the Modern Sporting Lawyer make you feel?

That’s why he and his wife are condemned. That’s why they have vowed to cancel him, to make an example of them, to find a way to charge them with crime. They are the opposite of demoralization.

The Modern Sporting Lawyer and his wife drive the Left crazy. Here, their desire to destroy as a senseless mob was turned back by only two people.

Can you imagine if the Right was united? I can.

The corollary is obvious: quit fighting each other in the right. Stop. People don’t believe in your exact brand?

You can’t stand Libertarians? You can’t stand Lutherans? Baptists? Catholics? Vox Day? That atheist friend that doesn’t mind Christianity but still believes in freedom? The idea to fix our situation isn’t exactly yours?

Too bad.

We are in the same foxhole. Stop (metaphorically) shooting each other. Now. If you’re not with us, you’re against us. And if you’re fighting us, you’re against us.

How do you know if you’re with us?

We like building statues, not tearing them down.
We like building civilization, not tearing it apart.
We like the reason of facts and truth, not the politically correct statement of the moment.
We like justice based on law, not the social justice of the mob or judges that twist “shall not” into “sometimes.”
We like a culture of honor, not a culture of victimhood due to the self-imposed prison.

And that is the difference. The Left is bitter. The Left is seething. The Left is angry.

Why? Because, just like the foal with the cattle guard, they’ve made themselves prisoners. They’ve forgotten that becoming a prisoner might not be a choice for a horse, but it is for a person. But for the Left, that prison mentality is preferred.

The prison mentality is the chosen mentality of the Left. They see themselves as weak. Since they see themselves as weak, there is no choice but to hate themselves for that weakness. But outwardly, the Left rationalizes that weakness as being, somehow, good. They have to, because that’s all that stands between them and the unending self-hate. The Left raises an “anything goes” sexuality and sensuality to the highest plane because they are rooted in the Material, and cannot understand the Spiritual, the Transcendent.

The Right rejects that. All of it.

Sex isn’t a virtue, chastity is a virtue. Sex isn’t evil, but making it the focus of your life is no different than any other addiction – it is a vice. But which of those does the Left celebrate? Inside, they know that it’s wrong, and that also fills them with self-hate.

Because of that hate, and seek to make the Right weak like them. How? By demoralizing the Right, by taking virtues and attacking them while publicly celebrating things we use to call sin. By coming up with never ending list of impossible demands and nonsensical redefinitions of the English language on an ever more frequent basis. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has recently been excommunicated from the Left for being brazen enough to indicate that women might be, well, women.

The Right has built Western Civilization, and built it with a compassion for the weak. That makes the Left hate the Right even more. They seek to make us doubt our morals and virtue: everyone is racist, every historical figure is fatally flawed. That is justification enough in the minds of the Left to tear down everything that has made their prosperity and wealth transfer possible. The Left makes no real art, just caricatures of the genius that has gone before, photographs of Christ soaking in urine. The Left is a parasite that, failing to create, destroys.

But those games won’t work anymore. The Right is strong. The Right is virtuous. The Left seeks to build nothing because that is the province of the Right. And to the Left, those who are strong and build statues to the virtues of flawed men are evil.

Was Columbus perfect? No. Did he open up a New World? Yes. How many people in Mexico City would prefer to revert to the charnel house of the Aztecs? Some, but every hand that goes up will belong to a member of the Left.

The Right is not evil. We hold the light of Freedom, of civilization, of the future of mankind in our hands. Why? Because they could never build it. The Left seeks to delegitimize our moral achievement, because they feel small and envious next to those that compete and create.

Remember, the Soviets never looked stronger than they did immediately before they collapsed.

I don’t think we will win.

I know we will win. We are the foals that recognize the painted lines on the asphalt for the lie that they are. We are the horses that realize that they have the strength to jump over the cattle guard that we used to think was our prison.

From Library of Congress.

I feel sorry for those who stand against the Right when we find our backs are to the wall. We have created the most powerful and free and prosperous culture in history. The Right doesn’t know its own strength. But it will learn, and the Left is afraid.

We will win. Maybe not this year. Maybe not next year. Maybe not even in the next decade. And the future won’t look like the past – that past is what led us to this crisis. We have the opportunity to remake our civilization, to remake America and to make it better.

And we will make it better.

And we will win.

We always have.

What is your profession?

I rarely ask people to share these posts, but if you have people you know are feeling down – please do.