How Scarcity Has Changed Your Life, And Will Change It Again. But With Hot Chick Pictures.

“Dad! Bob broke your beer!” – Strange Brew

Here’s one only 1300’s kids will get: The Black Plague

Part of the history of humanity was scarcity. Scarcity has formed society since, well, forever. What do I mean?

Well, before agriculture, there was a scarcity of beer. My personal theory is that civilization itself is because we wanted beer on a regular basis (Beer, Technology, Beer, Tide® Pods, Beer, Civilizational Stability, and Beer). Click on this one, it’s a fun read and one of my Original Wilder Thoughts.

So, beer was scarce, and we made agriculture and farms so we could get beer.

But what became scarce then? Labor.

Prior to having agriculture, slavery was a net negative. To have a slave, you had to feed him or her, and what were you going to have them do all day, hang out and play Nintendo®? If you sent them out to hunt or gather, they’d never come back. But once you had work to do every day to make sure the farm produced pre-beer?

Slavery made sense because having more slaves resulted in having more beer.

If agriculture was the most disruptive technology in history besides Über®, slavery was an unintended consequence. Labor stayed as a scarce resource for a long time, until the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was amazing precisely because it changed the game on labor.Why did Leia passionately kiss Luke? She was looking for love in Alderaan places.

Sure, labor was needed, but the entire type of labor needed to be changed. It went from artisans and craftsmen making “one of a kind” items to people working in a factory making standardized items that were all the same. Because of the nature of the process, people generally worked on only one part of whatever was being made. The jobs were simplified, so that people could do one, repeatable task again and again.

People became replaceable, just another cog in the machine, but the scarcity of labor that created the need for slavery changed to make slavery uneconomical again. Why have a slave that you have to take care for, when you can have an employee that you can fire when they get old or injured?

Now, the scarcity was energy.An entire industry was built on just getting energy to feed the industrial revolution. Coal was the first, but followed soon enough by oil. The first oil wells were a boon because they produced lamp oil, and the gasoline bits were thrown away (generally dumped on the ground) and the heavy bits (asphalt, etc.) were thrown in pits.

Of course, soon enough, we determined how to use everything that came out of the ground for something, and none of the sweet, sweet oil was wasted.

Have we outstripped our energy resources? Possibly. But that’s another post . . .After I put that fence up, my neighbor was dead against it.

Entertainment had been scarcer than an Amy Schumer comedy special, too. If you wanted to listen to a song, you had to find someone who could play it or sing it. And the best version that you could get was dependent upon the best singer in town, and the best guitar player. After records showed up, now anyone could listen to the best vocalist in the world. Local bands? They weren’t needed so much anymore. Soon enough, the best actors and comedians (Amy Schumer, sit down) in the world were available, too.

You could say that entertainment was just a subset of information. The availability of that had been growing, too. From information carved into stone, set into clay tablets, handwritten on paper or parchment, to a printing press using moveable type, information kept getting cheaper and cheaper.

And faster and faster. The upside? All of Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius and Seneca available in an instant. The downside? Game of Thrones™ and Maisy Williams with her unibrow.Aristotle says we are what we repeatedly do. Therefore? I am your mother. (not my meme)

There are those that hypothesized that the only reason the Mongol Empire stopped before overrunning Europe was the time it took to get communications from the seat of the Mongol Emperors of China to the fringes of Empire. Or it could have been that they didn’t watch their steppe. Communication of information around the world was impossible at 10,000 B.C. (or could take centuries), years during the Roman Empire, months after Britain ruled the waves, days after communication cables were strung ‘round the world by the end of the nineteenth century, and down to hours after radio.

Now? Tribesmen living in the middle of a South American rainforest know the daily price of gold. Information has transcended the bounds of time and space, and the greatest works of literature and film are widely and instantly available. Oh, and Amy Schumer videos.

The ability to make decisions is in the process of being phased out as a scarce item. For decades, computer control systems have replaced operators at industrial facilities, and robots not only make welds, but make the decisions on the quality of the products produced. But these processes are determined and monitored by people.

That’s changing. Difficult things that were kept to humans like diagnosing patients? Human doctors are losing to A.I. One particular system looked at EKGs, and the A.I. could predict people who were going to die, even when doctors looked at the information and couldn’t see anything wrong.What do they call the person who graduated last in his class at medical school? Doctor.

But at least we still have thought and creativity, right?

Well, no. 2022 is the advent of A.I. art. There are multiple engines, online right now that will draw pictures that are almost indistinguishable from photographs. I’ve posted one below. It may look like a hot chick, but I assure you that it is not. Don’t believe me? Look at the hands. Small details, sure. And small details that will eventually be fixed.How long will it be before novels are written by A.I., and entire movies from start to finish are created in A.I. engines? Something tells me, not long. If agriculture was the most disruptive technology in the history of mankind, A.I., even as it exists today, is the second most.

It has long been my assertion, that in any Universe where A.I. is possible, it will be created, and will spread to the stars. But what’s the densest form of information storage currently known, the wellspring of millions of species across the history of Earth?

DNA.

Such a complex structure that incorporates so much information. It’s almost like it was . . . created.

Wouldn’t it be the perfect vehicle for translating information across the vastness of space? Easy enough to encode an entire ecosystem a fraction of an ounce (megaliter). But I digress, that’s probably (likewise) a good starter for a future post.A friend of mine had a job circumcising elephants at the zoo. The pay wasn’t good, but the tips were large.

So what is the scarcity that we are facing now?

One thing I see that we’re facing right now is a scarcity of virtue.

The values that we know produce a stable society are in short supply, and dwindling. The cracks of that are spreading. It can’t, and won’t continue long. We are at the cusp of a singularity of different factors, the scarcity of scarcity, and the scarcity of virtue and self-discipline.

Good times make weak men, who create hard times, who create strong men.

We are on the cusp of the hard times, and the strong men will be back. Our civilization will not be the civilization that came before. We have the elements in place to make a future that our ancestors couldn’t dream of. There is a chance that it will be a golden era of freedom and enhanced creativity.

And to think, it all started with Urg, king of the 78-strong tribe of the Shamalama tribe in ancient Mesopotamia, wanting to have a cold beer.

Cheers!

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Elections And Narratives

“False Narrative!” – The Death of Stalin

When he was four, Pugsley asked, “Daddy, why do people make up things that their children have said for social media?  Isn’t it just inherently dishonest and indicative of inability to construct a compelling narrative themselves? “

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

I’ve kept the Clock O’Doom the same, though tensions may very well spike after the power outage in early December.  The advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Election 2022, Part III – Violence And Censorship Update – Biden’s Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – Anything In Defense Of The Narrative – Links

Front Matter

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, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 740 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.  Most of today’s memes are free-range, and not originals.  The crop was really good again this month.

Election 2022, Part III

The entire premise of a society with elections is that the ballots are fairly cast, and fairly counted.  It is not that every vote should count, it is that every valid vote should be counted.

Votes should be rejected.  If the election was on Tuesday and the votes shows up on Wednesday?  Nope.  Dead on election day?  No vote for you.

This is why I’m against early votes.

  • Each vote should be in person.
  • Each vote should be on election day (with provisions for absentee votes for military and those that cannot be in the state with a written excuse).
  • Votes should be on paper.
  • Ballots should be equipped with security so that I can’t take them to the copier and make dozens more.
  • The ballot casting and watching places should be open for anyone to observe.
  • Counting should be done by midnight on election day, at the latest.
  • Any vote not counted before midnight is void.
  • Identification required for a valid vote, along with proper registration.

Sort of simple, and implied.  But for whatever reason, every point above is controversial.  But only by the Left, because, historically, they have cheated.  Sure, the Right has cheated, but the Right typically is less organized and has way better jobs than counting ballots.

The result?

2022 was certainly tampered with.  “Dr. Oz” was a horrible candidate, but didn’t look like a mentally-challenged fictional murderer, Slingblade.  And Dr. Oz could speak in complete sentences.

If this stands, the Left is slowly going to take over all the mechanisms that make a free and fair election possible.

Everyone welcome Senator Fetterblade.

However.

The Supreme Court is potentially taking a case with huge ramifications:  the idea is that the Constitution means what it says, that the responsibility for setting up elections is with the legislatures of the several states.  Not courts.  Not the governor.  The legislatures, and it’s not reviewable.

If so, this is big – it keeps the federal hand out of the cookie jar of state elections and the states just have to deal with bribery, fraud, and corruption.  We’ll see.

Violence And Censorship Update

As usual, censorship has been the biggest front.  In most of Civil War 2.0 Weather Reports, the trend has been that censorship has been on the increase from multiple fronts.  November has seen a small victory as Elon has rustled jimmies all through the Left.

How much?  They want him dead:

And if they don’t want him dead, they want him hauled up before a Senate committee to answer stupid questions from geriatric windbags who had their feelings hurt:

But Elon has made journalists seethe.  How?  He’s taking away their beloved Blue Checkmark© because it turns out, there might have been some shenanigans about how some of them got the Mark©.

I guess they’ll have to check their blue (check) privilege:

In serious news, it appears that several tax preparation software packages sent back email, income, and refund information straight to Facebook®.

Oh, and your phone?  The FBI issued “a general warrant” for data on anyone near the Capitol on January 6, 2021.  Never happened before.  Justified based on (seriously) COVID.

The Left will stop at nothing to turn data against you.  Remember, your phone is a tracking and listening device, and if it sees something, it says something.

Biden’s Misery Index

Let’s take a look to see how we’ve done this month . . . .

Yup, up again.  Thanks, Brandon.  It sucks that there are so many Kamalas.

 

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 combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence ticked slightly upward this month.  Unless there are more blackouts, I’m betting it stays down until March-April at the earliest.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable, and it went up a bit – November didn’t cause a spike, and I’m not seeing a lot in the next two months to cause increased instability.

Economic:

Amazingly, I think people have become used to the inflation.  Wonder what a rail strike would do?

Illegal Aliens:

Illegals are eight (8!) times more this time of year than any time measured during the same month during Trump’s time in office, and close to an all-time record.  This is a repeat comment, because the border is wide open.

Anything In The Defense Of The Narrative

I’ve been aware of Graham Hancock for decades.  He’s a journalist/writer who has been focused on history for quite a while.  Initially, his work was pretty normal – writing about hunger and AIDS and poverty.  But then?  After a three-year hiatus, he published Fingerprints of the Gods, about the evidence that supported a civilization that predates all of recorded history.

Oddly, at least at one place, he was correct.  Göbekli Tepe is a site in Turkey that predates the “first civilizations” in Mesopotamia (about 5,000 years ago) and ancient Ur (6,000 years ago) and even your momma (8,000 years old).  Göbekli Tepe is about 11,500 years old.

Hancock was at least partially right.  Here, after his book was published, was the evidence of a civilization older than the oldest one we knew of.  By nearly 6,000 years.  They were moving big stones, and getting together.  There is pretty significant evidence that they were making beer, too, so they can’t be all bad.  Hancock even has a Netflix© special about his work.

Sure, you say, “That’s interesting, John, but this is the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report not a Netflix® special.”

And that’s the point.  The entire reaction from the Left has been silly over this.  Despite being proven correct on some of his conjectures, Hancock has been attacked ferociously in the media.

Why?

I have only one guess:  there is a single narrative on anything.  An attack on any “established fact” can’t be tolerated.  At all.  So, if “science” says something, it simply cannot be disputed.  I think this is, at least partially, a reaction to the COVID nonsense where Leftists pulled in the virtue signaling idea that “This House Believes In Science” when the truth is science isn’t a belief – it’s a system for discovering truth.

Nothing is off limits in real science, but the Left has to censor any idea that challenges the mainstream.  Evidence?  How about Canada?

Well, Justin Trudeau has put himself fully in favor of protests, except when it comes to protests against him.

Strangely, there are rumors that the people who carried a flag very popular in Germany in the 1930s during the recent Trucker’s Protest was a government agent.

Here’s the person in question, carrying the freshly purchased, just unfolded out of the sack flag.  Not at all suspicious.

The idea is to paint absolutely everyone who disagrees with The Narrative as evil.  No matter what part of The Narrative that’s questioned.  And they don’t see the irony.

Thankfully, Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to be the “disinformation Czar” earlier this year has a new job.  Working for foreigners.

Since this doesn’t challenge The Narrative, this is fine.  In fact, noticing things that challenge The Narrative is Badthink.  I’ll just leave this here:

And we wonder why the nation is falling apart . . . .

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much, Ricky!!

Bad Guys

https://twitter.com/CPD1617Scanner/status/1590858149162274816

https://youtu.be/h_cvFEfpU3g

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1597808974295728128

https://twitter.com/i/status/1591160541829300224

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596490454245089282

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596592437127917568

https://twitter.com/i/status/1591179759228444674

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597196379725914112

https://twitter.com/i/status/1599182109780119554

https://twitter.com/i/status/1596308757151043585

https://twitter.com/TheFilthyTimes/status/1595826090035253248

https://twitter.com/i/status/1590745057224642576

https://twitter.com/i/status/1598109618483625984

https://twitter.com/i/status/1598837217140477955

Good Guys

https://twitter.com/davenewworld_2/status/1592284803944288256

https://twitter.com/i/status/1597452016305205250

One Guy

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=63470

Body Count

https://summit.news/2022/12/02/new-federal-data-shows-73000-illegal-immigrant-gotaways-in-one-month/

https://www.statista.com/chart/28644/rate-of-homicides-that-go-unsolved-in-the-us/

https://www.amren.com/videos/2022/11/latest-interracial-crime-stats/

https://vdare.com/articles/about-28-black-on-white-homicides-including-a-5-man-massacre-suppressed-by-the-new-york-times-october-2022-another-month-in-the-death-of-white-america

https://summit.news/2022/11/18/video-thermal-drone-footage-shows-army-of-illegals-entering-u-s/

https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/world-premiere-died-suddenly/

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1590083864558727170

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/share-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status-30-jurisdictions-in-the-u.s.-september-2021-to-august-2022-age-18-and-over.png?itok=s40nRW3J

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/covid-deaths-skew-older-reviving-questions-about-e2-80-98acceptable-loss-e2-80-99/ar-AA14DLdb

https://goodsciencing.com/covid/athletes-suffer-cardiac-arrest-die-after-covid-shot/

Vote Count

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/SBF%20democrat%20donor_0.jpg?itok=MS58Rkl8

https://media.gab.com/system/media_attachments/files/120/617/428/playable/9fec9ca3968f76ad.mp4?_=2

https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/112322_SocialistWatch2022_3.pdf

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1597400282253922305.html

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/11/heres_how_they_did_it_realtime_election_fraud.html

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1590446073213952000.html

https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/voting-doesnt-win-you-elections

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2Fradio%2F2022%2F11%2F14%2Fexclusive-shawn-steel-ballot-harvesting-california-republicans-must-adapt-or-die%2F

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanthinker.com%2Farticles%2F2022%2F11%2Fwith_this_obstacle_in_place_republicans_cant_get_the_white_house.html

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/04/cocktail-parties-that-could-define-democrats-00064560

https://newschannel9.com/news/local/walker-county-man-convicted-of-voter-fraud-sentenced-to-25-years-da-says

Civil War

https://newrepublic.com/article/169141/its-elites-vs-base-coming-republican-civil-war

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/15/republican-civil-war-trump-mcconnell-scott

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-civil-war-trump-desantis-midterms-1758558

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-infighting-starts-democrats-also-face-revolt-new-york-midterm-election-1758810

https://hayspost.com/posts/1c6d7c57-df36-4a9a-af45-a4a144702552

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2022%2Fnov%2F06%2Fhow-close-is-the-us-to-civil-war-barbara-f-walter-stephen-march-christopher-parker

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/is-a-civil-war-brewing-in-america/ss-AAZBzFn#image=2

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11385903/Ex-CIA-staffer-claims-Christian-white-men-primed-start-civil-war-America.html

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-brink-civil-war-survey-highlights.html

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/has-next-civil-war-already-started-205967

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2022/11/30/how_the_next_civil_war_begins_585926.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/at-protests-across-america-guns-are-doing-the-talking/ar-AA14zpif

Beyond Civil War

https://www.wired.com/story/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-dark-ships/

https://www.newsweek.com/leaked-fsb-letters-russia-putin-nuclear-war-weapons-ukraine-1762695

https://time.com/6228466/nuclear-war-risk-daily-issue-biden/

https://larouchepub.com/other/2022/4947-what_would_happen_if_a_nuclear.html

Feminism: The God That Failed

“Now, I know you’re a feminist, and I think that’s adorable, but this is grown-up time and I’m the man.” – Family Guy

My friend was a manager and hired a woman.  He told her that her first job was to make him a sandwich.  She quit.  Subway® is so sexist! (FYI, most memes today are, “as-found”)

Feminism.  It sounds so, well, reasonable from the start.  “Women just want equal rights.”  Sure, it sounds reasonable until you recall that the rise of feminism was the rise of the temperance movement, which made having a beer after work, umm, complicated.  But it was women who were at the lead of that absolute failure, too.

The result was two atrocities:  women got the vote, and you couldn’t get a beer.  All they missed was a Constitutional Amendment mandating Fran Drescher’s voice doing every public announcement and commercial and sports play-by-play and the world would have been an absolute hell.  Yes, it would have been worse than actual 2020.  But not by a lot.

How much beer does it take to get an astronomer drunk?  At least 4.5 light beers.

Again, it sounds reasonable.  Don’t drink.  Oh, wait, your humble purveyor of dank memes and attempted witticisms is maybe two glasses of wine in and I’m enjoying that.  I’m not arguing that not drinking is better for you than drinking.  Mormons and other people that don’t drink live until they’re essentially dust connected to other bits of dust by regret, but, hey, I’m not judging.

Mark Twain, though, had a few choice words:  “Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink – under any circumstances.”  But we’re not talking about booze here, we’re talking about feminism.

Again, I’ll reference Twain:  “A woman springs a sudden reproach upon you which provokes a hot retort, and then she will presently ask you to apologize.”  I honestly think that’s the history of feminism.

What’s the difference between a Sumo wrestler and a radical feminist?  The Sumo wrestlers shave their legs.

I’ve attacked feminism several times in this post so far without any sort of backing.  What sort of backing do I need?  I mean, should we start all the way back at the 19th Amendment, which granted women “universal sufferage” – which I would have thought would have been a bad idea.  I mean, The Mrs. suffers a lot, but that’s just because I’m me.

The difficult part of feminism is that it attempts to first create a division between women and men.  And, the fair part of that is that women and men are fundamentally different.  They’re different biologically down to the genetic level.  When studies were done of the brains of women and men, it was found that those brains were fundamentally different.  The Mrs. can see about 175,083 colors.  I see seven or so.  The Mrs. likes to be warm and comfy on a campout.  I realize that discomfort is a transient condition and if the tent leaks, it might be irritating.

If you love someone, let her go.  Hopefully, she won’t call the FBI.

But “science” assumed for decades that the brain of a dude was the same as the brain of a broad.  It’s simply not so.  It’s actually 100% provable that dudes and broads have different brains.  When studying babies, baby boys like men toys – wheels, cars, machines.  Baby girls like plush toys and fuzzy warm girl things.

Science had (and still has) a weird egalitarian streak that assumes that any baby created from any combination of parents on Earth might be shorter or taller, fatter or skinnier, browner or paler, and yet still has exactly the same brain.

Let’s pretend that utter fiction was true (it’s not).  If so, what happens when those kids get flooded with the white-hot hormones of puberty, estrogen and testosterone?

Yeah.

This is your brain on feminism.

Men and women are different, and they’re born different, and develop differently.  Dress a man up like a woman?  That’s the same as turning a classic Pizza Hut™ into a bank.  We all know that whatever color you paint it, or what sign you put on it, it’s still a Pizza Hut®.

Even worse?  Men and women have utterly different motivations when it comes to mating.  Why?  Men are involved, but women are committed.  A man can have nearly unlimited offspring in a lifetime (as Genghis Khan can attest, 35% – not a typo, 35% of Mongolian people today are his descendants) but women can only have a few kids so they are choosy and choose the best dude they can find.  The result?

35% of Mongolian people are the descendants of Genghis Khan.

When women aren’t constrained by society, they’ll have the kids of the most macho dude they can find.  Women practice hypergamy – they try to marry up in either social caste or intelligence or whatever floats their boat.  Men practice, well, “Dude, did you see her?  She’s hot.”

Hint:  having a majority of young males that have no interest in the future of society isn’t a good thing.

I am a result of such hypergamy.  As many of you know, I’m adopted.  Unlike many adopted kids, I have a lot of data about my biological parents.  My biological mother was at college and decided, “Whoa, that dude is really smart.  I want to have his baby.”

Yes.  This happened.  The dude was a freshman.  My biological mother was a senior.  The poor guy never had a chance, and, thus, I exist, entirely due to hypergamy.

I say “the poor guy” because it was true.  He was a mark in her game.  She wanted his genetics in her child.  That was it.  There wasn’t a plan, there wasn’t love.  Hypergamy isn’t about those things, it’s a transaction.  For him, it was her saying, “Hey, baby, I like the way you fill out those genes.”  The long-term result for her from this strategy is pictured below:

And  . . .

But, when it came time to take care of me, my biological mom was not up to it.  I assure you, that given the combinatory genetics of her willful and cunning plotting and his intelligence, I was probably the most capably evil baby born that year.  Seriously.  I was the most awful child in stunning ways.  I could list them, but you’d be shocked.  I mean, how many other seven-year-olds have convinced their grandmothers to buy them magazines with actual boobage in them?

Yeah.  And that doesn’t include . . . . oh, so many things.

Hypergamy is a less-than-zero-sum game, though.  Whereas conventional morals would indicate that a married couple should really try to stick it out unless it was a morally untenable relationship (see:  my first marriage, which would have been dissolvable in any Christian year since ever) now the woman is encouraged to blow it all up for games and prizes.  And demonize men in the process.  Why?  Because they’re there.

Also?  Feminism.  The laws used to be if you were the reason that the marriage didn’t work, you suffered.  Later?  Not so much.  Now, women have the upper hand in nearly all facets, and in fact, start most of the divorces (70-80%) in the country.  Why?

The laws are stacked in their favor, even more so if there are children.

This is a result of feminism.  But beyond that has been the impact on society as a whole.  What would the result of the 2020 election have been (even after the shenanigans) if only men voted?

Left for you:  show how the federal deficit, abortion rate, divorce rate, rate of church attendance, number of single mothers, increase in welfare, and a dozen other things increased after women got to vote.

I want to make something clear:  I really, really love women.  I think they’re awesome and respect The Mrs. highly, and I think she’d trust me to cast a ballot she’d believe in, because we think alike.  I also think that woman’s suffrage has only resulted in suffering and believe it can be shown mathematically (shhhhh, most of them aren’t so good at math).  So, let’s put out a petition to end woman’s suffrage!  I think we can get 70% of women to sign it . . . .

Unplug Yourself From Things That Drain You. And Kardashians.

Then you’ll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. – The Matrix

Okay, it’s not great.  The other one was, “What do you get when Keanu Reeves does ‘shrooms?  Neo-sporin.”  See, I saved you from that.

Unplug yourself.

I mean, don’t stop coming here.  That would be silly, because you definitely want to associate yourself with someone who has the amazingly good hygiene and stellar good looks that I do.  I mean, unplug yourself from places that make you mad.

Consciously, most of my posts, while letting you know the unvarnished Truth with a capital T* (*really, as best as I know it), are meant to poke fun at it.  It might make you think about things that you really don’t want to think about.  I understand.  I’m still sorry about that Kardashian meme.

Honestly, dating a Kardashian would be like dating a wookie®.

Well, obviously not that sorry.

Back to the Truth.

Most people that I talk to have an Agent Smith (from The Matrix, not that pesky ATF guy who keeps asking if the stuffed dog I have is filled with Tannerite, because, let’s face it, the only thing that ATF agents love shooting more than kids is dogs) moment.

No, the Agent Smith moment I have with friends goes like this:  I talk about facts.  They nod.  I talk about actual events.  They nod.  Then I bring up a premise that is inescapable:  “So, we agree gravity exists.”  Nod.  “And I’m holding a coffee mug over a 1,000 foot (4.3 Celsius) cliff.”  Nod.  “And if I drop it, it will fall down, and shatter into a million pieces, and it will never be able to be put together again.”

Then Agent Smith takes over the conversation.  “Well, I don’t want to think about that.”  The conversation is over.  There is a step that they cannot take.  It’s like me trying to convince them that a constant diet of candy corn, Twinkies®, fried Snickers® bars, and drinking the fluid from a chocolate fountain that 359 kindergarteners have been putting their booger-soaked fingers into isn’t a good diet.

This is what happens when you follow the USDA food pyramid.

I recall having a conversation several years ago with a guy on the Left.  “Yes, John Wilder, I agree.  Massive immigration is destroying every one of the values in our country.  But strawberries might be more expensive if we didn’t allow them in.”

My response was rather simple, “So, you, a guy on the Left, wants to pay people less so you can have cheaper strawberries?  Wouldn’t it be simpler to pay people more, pay less than 1% of what you make in a month to pay Americans enough to give you strawberries?”

Agent Smith took over his mind.  “Umm, well, I don’t understand those things very well.”

I took him to the ledge, but he refused to look over.

But, hey, he saved $0.35 this week.

That’s the Truth.  And, I assure you, the Truth is your friend.

What is Truth?  Step on a scale.  Look down.  The number is the Truth.  Try to pick up a weight.  If you can, you can.  That is Truth.  The Iron never lies.  The scale never lies.

I was working with a person who noted I had lost some weight.  He asked me, “How can I lose weight?”

My response was simple:  “Weigh yourself.  Every day.  The scale doesn’t lie.”

The look on his face was amazing.  I think he wanted me to tell him, “Believe in aliens, bigfoot (bigfeet?) and the Loch Ness Monster, drink seven shots of Hershey’s® chocolate syrup ever night, and you’ll lose 27 pounds a week.”  When I told him to weigh himself, his face fell.

He didn’t want the Truth.  And I didn’t follow up with, “By the way, I also rarely eat between Saturday night and Friday,” because that would bake the gourd of most people.  They don’t want to know that losing weight sucks, that it requires amazing work and walking into the house at night after work and telling The Mrs., “No dinner for me, I’m fasting.”

I’ve been doing this whole Intermittent Fasting thing.  Bums me out.  I did it at least nine times today.

People want pretty lies.  Yet, the healthiest thing for them is the Truth.  Just before I started writing this, Frequent Commenter Ricky emailed me a story that said that, per FDA guidelines, water could not be labeled as, “healthy”.  So, enjoy all the Gatorade®, Pepsi™, and Coca-Slop© that you want.  It doesn’t have fat in it, so, according to bad science dating back to before I was born, it’s better for you than water.

Nope, the Truth sucks.  People are awful.  Bad guys win – a lot.  People get old.  And then they die.  All of us die.  And, the FDA lies.  But, most of you come here regularly.  Can you handle the Truth?  Yup, you can.  And you seek it.  I think most of you understand that.

But there is a group of people who are trying to demoralize you.  The easiest way to win a battle, per George S. Patton, Jr., is to make the enemy afraid of you.  Yet, they wouldn’t have to do any of this if they had won.

They haven’t won.  They are desperate to win, yet you and I remain, stubborn, like islands in the middle of a hurricane.  We live.  We persist.  And we will win.  That’s what scares them the most.

Why am I so stubborn?  I’m not telling you.

So, when you see something that makes you feel like all is lost, remember, that’s them whispering in your ear.  The want you to think that you can’t win, even though everything that is right, beautiful, and True is on your side.  When you see this sort of demoralization?

Turn it off.

Don’t go back.  Not because you’re afraid of opposing viewpoints, but because you refuse to have your emotions manipulated.  Never, ever, let Agent Smith inside.  Seek the Truth.  It’s there.  Unless it’s a Kardashian that isn’t hairy.

That’s a lie.

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.)

The Backlash Against Journalists Begins

“Let them have the cabbage. We here at I.N.S. will feast on journalistic filet mignon.” – The Night Stalker

An honest journalist walked into CNN®.  The network head asked, “What are you doing here?”

I guess Trudeau had enough of people being mean to journalists.  I mean, we know that Justin Trudeau is the most tolerant person in Canada, right?

But he’s the most qualified person to be prime minister, right?

Huh.  Perhaps not.  But certainly, he has the best in mind for his people.

Well, thankfully the vaxx is helping people stay alive.  I mean, it’s not like mortality is up by double (or nearly double) in the ages from 25-55.  Oh, wait . . . .

I wonder how people will react to that?

Certainly, that didn’t happen, that journalists and the press wanted awful things to happen to people that had a different opinion.  I mean, is there any evidence of that?

I guess after that, I’m getting the subtle hint that they might not like folks who were somewhat suspicious of a new technology unleashed with minimal testing.

But at least the vaxx works.

 

I’ll let Sam Hyde have the last word.

28 Things That Make Me Happy

“Happy premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won’t.” – Bowfinger

Why can’t you make coffee happy?  It’s always bitter.

What makes me happy?  Oh, sure, like everyone else I love it when Joe Biden falls off a bicycle and want to start a GoFundMe® to buy him a 350 horsepower motorcycle.  But beyond that motorcycle, what really makes me happy?

A lot of things.  So, the following are a few of them, in an absolutely random order:

  1. Helping people see what they otherwise would not have seen. That’s why I write.
  2. Writing.
  3. Helping people laugh. I stood up in front of several hundred adults when I was in third grade and did a standup routine.    It was awful.  Why do third graders not do standup?  Their material is awful.  I have been writing humor since about that time.
  4. A good cigar. I smoke them rarely enough that my insurance company calls me a non-smoker.  But sitting down in the hot tub with one and staring out at the peaceful night sky in Modern Mayberry as the coyotes creep out of their dens to howl at sunset?
  5. A good book. I’ve read several this year, and was planning on doing a post about those.  Regardless, a book is transformative.  I like mine in paper – something about the tactile feel of the book is hypnotic.  E-books are convenient, but are less immersive.
  6. A bad book. I generally learn something even from those.

I once mixed a snake with a fruit.  I called it a bananaconda.

  1. Cool days. I am really not a fan of summer except at elevations above a mile and a half or latitudes near that of Fairbanks.  Winter?  Never seen one too cold.
  2. The smooth taste of a cup of coffee in the morning makes me hate waking up a bit less.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that I have to get up, and to move from comfort to discomfort if I want to accomplish anything.  Coffee is our bitter friend that makes being awake work for me.
  3. Making the world better in big ways. If I can make the world a little bit better for thousands of people I don’t know, awesome.  I’ve been lucky enough to do that a time or two.
  4. Making the world better in small ways. I tip well and don’t complain (much) when I go out to eat.  Waitresses, even crappy ones, work hard so I don’t want to make their lives harder when for a couple of bucks I can make it better.

Chuck Norris and Superman® wrestled once.  Loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his clothes for the rest of his life.

  1. Being with my family. Good heavens, I love those dunderheads.  The thing that family provides is, perhaps, the only lasting legacy that I’ll leave.
  2. I had a friend once who is an Orthodox Priest (I seem to attract priests and clergy – I have no idea why) and he asked me a simple, but profound question, “If you love learning, is that a good thing?”  Great question!  My only answer that I’ve come up with so far is that to know Truth takes us closer to knowing God.  To know what is False tells us what is not God.  Still a great question, and I can see the idea that learning can sometimes be a distraction that takes us away from Truth.
  3. Making liars uncomfortable. I have no idea why, but I cannot abide by those that aren’t faithful, and those that lie (there’s a difference).  I’ve heard it said that we all lie, and I must admit that in my youth I told a few.  I’ve since learned that I cannot escape the Truth so I try to be as faithful to Truth as much as I can be.  Has telling the Truth cost me when a lie would never have been caught?    Was it worth it?  Yes.  My honor is clean.  It’s not my job to judge, but when I can make them feel pain?  I love it.
  4. Good music. What do I like about music?  I like optimistic music, music that looks to a future that, while it might mean there’s a fight, means that there is hope.  Rock and roll used to be that music before it got whiney.
  5. A good mystery. I love being able to take clues and figure out the real answer.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn’t.

In the 1970s, Led Zep™ went on vacation, so Pink Floyd® tended their gardens.  So, Roger Waters Robert’s Plants?

  1. Knowing that the main limitation to what I do in the world is me. I am lucky enough to be able to choose what (mostly) I want to do.  Because of that, my choices define my destiny.  Not Destiny, that’s a stripper that works down in McMaynerbury.
  2. Camping is a way to get away from the things that make us comfortable.  Huh?  I thought comfortable was happy?  No. Comfortable is comfortable.  When camping away from all of the things that mask us from the realities of the basic functions of life it leads me to focus on them, and understand that life in a cold tent in the rain after eating food that was poorly cooked is . . . still pretty good.  Comfort isn’t happiness.
  3. Knowing that there is much more on Heaven and Earth than is dreamt of in my philosophy. I believe, as the man said to those dudes in Corinth, we “see through a glass, darkly.”  I know that there is imperfection in what I know, and what I understand.  I also know that, (at least) as long as I’m alive, I’ll never understand it all.  How cool is that!?!?  We live in a time and place where we’ll never have all the answers.  The game is afoot.
  4. Being on time. I hate being late – I think it shows disrespect to those that you’re meeting.  When I’m on time, and not rushed?  It’s wonderful.  So, I try to do that because it makes me happy.
  5. Sleeping in. I love to sleep in.  It’s awesome.  What makes it awesome?  Getting up early.  I hate that – that’s why getting up early is awesome.

Fush u mang?

  1. Knowing that I have to do things that are uncomfortable to grow. Getting up early is one.  So, doing things I don’t like, things that are uncomfortable make me happy because I know that’s a chance to grow.
  2. Knowing that the most important thing I’ll ever do is probably in front of me.
  3. Or not.
  4. Fixing something. When something is broken it actively makes me unhappy every time I see it or have to deal with it.  Weirdly, I get an outsized amount of happiness in dealing with the things that I fixed or made better.
  5. Starting something. Every start is a new journey.  What an adventure!

After reading the dictionary, every other book is just a remix.

  1. Finishing something. Every completion is something in the past, something that I’ve done to my standard.  What’s next?
  2. Doing something pure. I used to make models, and sometimes I’d look at the unpainted model and love the purity of the completed plane or tank or starship.  I almost hated to paint it.  And then when the painting was done?  Also awesome.  But building something new and perfect is a thumb in the eye of entropy.
  3. Watching my children achieve. Like I said above, my children are perhaps my only legacy.  In three generations, most memories of me will likely be gone, so I’ll live on in the world only in the legacy of my children.  And maybe that makes me happiest.

Now about that motorcycle.  A Harley® or a Ninja™?

Thoughts On Independence Day, 2022

“My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the Rebels.” – Clerks

Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?  At the bottom, silly.

Independence Day is just around the corner, and I’ve got the Civil War 2.0 Weather Report scheduled for that day, so I thought I’d give a few thoughts about one of the most cherished ideas in our history:  Independence.

Independence was the life blood of our new nation.  I think people were genetically (and sometimes judicially) selected for it.  The people that came here looked around Britain and said, “You know what, I’d much rather be in a wilderness surrounded by hostile natives.  Oh, and I’ll gladly cross an ocean in a dangerous journey that will take forever, and I’ll never see the land of my birth again.”

It’s one thing to do that yourself, but these dudes convinced their wives to come, too.

Leaving everything you know and love is not normal, but Duncan McWilder left Scotland before the Revolutionary War was over to come on over here.  I don’t know his story, but as I trace his children across generations, not a one of them settled in a place where life was easy – in fact every one of them headed for the frontier (as it existed in their time) and pushed outwards.

They raised heaven knows what in Virginia and Alabama.  They tamed Texas.  They built the railroads.  The homesteaded in New Mexico.  Portions of the family were west of the Rockies in 1860.  Not a single day was spent in a life in on easy mode.  They built this country with their sweat, their tears, and over the bones of their wives who died in childbirth and their sons who died of fever and war.

None of it was easy.  The hard choice was something else:

Independence.

But they had one thing in their mind – they bowed to no man.  I feel safe in saying that should my forefathers have met any king or potentate that walked this Earth that not a single one of them would have bowed.  They would have stood straight up, looked him in the eye, and thought to themselves, “You’re nothing but a man like me.  And no Wilder bows to any man.”

When people mention to me that I am the beneficiary of “white privilege” or any other such nonsense, I laugh.  My ancestors fought in Europe, twice, in the last century.  They fought here at places like Shiloh and Manassas Junction.  They fought at places like Valley Forge when the dark winter nearly doomed a nation yet unborn.  I stand at the end of a line of brave men and women who looked on a new and fresh continent, not with fear, but with determination.  They wouldn’t bend their knees even to their countrymen.  Why?

Independence.

Life was never easy.  But I look back onto that line of my ancestors and know – they made the hard choice, the choice to be free.  They gave up comfort and, likely, material success to have control of their own destiny.  Rather than submit, they pushed farther out – into danger.  Wolves aren’t a problem now.  Why not?

My ancestors (along with many others) killed them.  Grizzly bears used to be in nearly every State.  Not now.  Why?  My ancestors (along many others) killed them.  They braved the cold, the heat, the snakes, the (now dead) bears, and the (now dead) wolves.  Why?

Independence.

I’m not alone here, either.  If you’re reading this, there’s a near certainty that you came from a long line of Big Damn Heroes® yourself.  They carved a nation out of their heroism, their success, and, yes, their failure, all chasing the same dream.

Independence.

I’ve met billionaires, movie stars, sports stars, and rock stars.  I hold none of them in contempt.  And I hold none of them as my better.  I had several times that I could have sworn fealty and abandoned my integrity and had greater success.

I never would.  To do so would have been shameful to the memories of those that came before me.  So, I never will.  Why?

Independence.

I am not alone.  The United States was a magnet for hard-headed men of principle that were looking for nothing but that chance to be free, to be independent, to live their own lives.

In 1900, my ancestors would interact with the Federal government whenever they got their mail.  That might have been infrequent, at best, out on the frontier, out in the places where they might be lucky to see mail once in a month.

From once a month, we’ve moved to all the time.  When my alarm goes off in the morning, it’s driven by electricity that comes from power plants regulated by the EPA.  I go to the bathroom where I brush my teeth with toothpaste approved by the FDA, and then into the shower where the valve is regulated by the Consumer Protection Agency and water regulated by several government agencies.  I then get in the car (approved in different aspects by several government agencies) fueled by gasoline . . . and the number of agencies in that chain just to get gasoline is amazing.

The biggest difference between then and now are the massive cities.  Our cities are huge and complex and anonymous.  Here in the country, you can configure your life to deal only with the people you see at work and the people that you see at the store, in the city there are people everywhere.

And the chances you’ll see a random individual again in a context so that you’d recognize them?

Nearly zero.

Thus, cities are an environment where people are anonymous.  Anonymous people aren’t responsible for their actions – they exist outside of the constraint of society.  Be rude to someone because your day isn’t going well?  Whatever.  You’ll never see them again.  They’re not a part of your group, your tribe.

That anonymity might sound like Independence, but it’s not – it actually leads to the worst of tyranny – rule after rule because poor manners in an anonymous setting lead to rules about how tall a lawn can be.  And if you don’t follow that rule, and don’t pay the fines associated with breaking it?

People with guns will take you to a concrete box and keep you there.  So, cities don’t sound very free to someone like me.

On the other side of the equation, small towns provide accountability without resorting to the law.

A city slicker moved to Modern Mayberry and didn’t pay a plumber because of a disagreement.  What are the odds any other plumber will even return his calls when something goes wrong?  Or any contractor?  Heck, even I know the story, so I’m giggling thinking about them making phone calls when they need to get their septic tank pumped.

Without anonymity, there is responsibility.  It will be a tough lesson for the city slicker to learn.  I remember that lesson every time I go to dinner and see the same waitress for the twentieth time.  They are responsible to me as a waitress, and I am responsibility to them as a customer.

In my small town, I have responsibility.  My forefathers had independence, but they also had responsibility.  If they succeeded, they succeeded.  If they failed, they failed.  If they died because of their foolishness?  They died.

The lesson is simple:  independence isn’t freedom from consequences.  Independence is being free to choose.  Living with those consequences is the result.

We sit here at the edge of a new world that is struggling to be born out of the old world that we lived in.  Will we choose independence and responsibility?

I know what my ancestors would choose.

The Funniest Post You’ll Read Today About The Stoics

“First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?” – Silence of the Lambs

Never trust Hunter Biden to pick up pizza and coke for a party.

The last five posts have been fairly dark, and Monday’s post will be dark, too.  I already know that dark humor is like aid for the citizens of Ukraine – not everyone gets it (this is a repeat from 1932, LINK).  That’s to be expected.  We live in interesting times.  But the good news is, it’s Friday.  Last Friday, I happened upon a friend.  I promise, I have more than one, despite what the NSA says.

In the World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold and Silver!

My friend noted that he had to go shopping, and he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it.  I responded, “Well, Marcus Aurelius said that you can find happiness in whatever moment, and the limiting factor is often what you feel about the situation, rather than the situation.”  I said this even though I haven’t been shopping since Jimmy Kimmel was funny.

He smiled.  We continued talking, and he went off shopping.  As I was sitting at my table, I found this quote, from the inestimable P. G. Wodehouse’s , as found here (LINK) from his Jeeves and Wooster series of books (also a television series starring Stephen Fry as Jeeves and Hugh Laurie as Wooster).  Setup – Jeeves is the intelligent, dry-witted, valet to Bertie Wooster, an idle British aristocrat.  Thanks to Wodehouse, hilarity often ensues:

“Who do you think I am, Alfred Einstein?”

I turned to Jeeves.  “So, Jeeves!”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you mean, ‘Yes, sir’?”

“I was endeavouring [Wilder note:  the British cannot spell] to convey my appreciation of the fact that your position is in many respects somewhat difficult, sir. But I wonder if I might call your attention to an observation of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He said: ‘Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part; of the great web’.”

I breathed a bit stertorously.  “He said that, did he?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, you can tell him from me he’s an ass.”

Bonus points if you knew what stertorously meant.  I had to look it up.  Snort.

Is she attractive?  Neigh.

I’ve heard it said that life is a tragedy to those that feel, a comedy to those that think.  Given that, the really funny part of life is that when times are down we don’t want to listen to the simple stoic Truths of life:

  • Control what you can, don’t let those things you don’t control (like the Wendy’s® drive through line, or Hunter Biden’s amazing appetite for crack) drive you nuts.
  • There is Virtue. We can spend our lives splitting hairs about what is virtuous, or, we could just be virtuous.  Be Virtuous.
  • Most passions aren’t healthy. Some are, but taken to extreme, even those become unhealthy, like when I lift weights and become so strong that I can rip apart the fabric of the Universe just by tensing my glistening pectoral muscles?  See, unhealthy.  Understand the difference, and don’t be ruled by emotion.  Passion is for 18 year olds, reason is for adults.
  • Johnny Depp was pretty good in the movie Dead Man.
  • Seek wisdom to guide your virtue.
  • Seek justice to create a more virtuous society. Not an equitable society, but a virtuous one.  Let Disney™ know that there’s a difference.
  • Understand that courage is required – Virtue often comes with a price, which may be about $3.50, in 1973. Or a career in 2020.
  • Living outside of Virtue is the clearest definition of Vice.
  • Possessions are, for the most part, neither good nor bad, but what we do with them determines their value. Anyone want to buy a slightly used copy of the Necronomicon?

The lures that pull us away from being virtuous are many.  PEZ®.  TikGram©.  InstaFace©.  SnapTwit®.  PornHULU©.  TinderMAX®.  EskimoBrotherDataBase (EBDB)™.  The idea is that if we’re distracted, we don’t focus on the things that are important in life, like virtue.

One of the things that sets humans apart is that we think about our actions and the consequences.  The result of all the lures?  It pulls us away from improving ourselves, from having introspection and working through our issues.  Issues?  I don’t have issues.  Like most people, I have subscriptions.

Surround yourself with people who have issues – they always have beer.  And 21-year-old nannys.

True life:  I was having a problem, something that really, really made me mad, like the Game of Thrones™ parents who named their kids “Daenerys” saw her turn into a war criminal.  I didn’t let it consume me like a dragon consuming a daycare center, but in those small, still moments of life that issue managed to creep into my conscious.

Like when I woke up at 3am and it didn’t mean I had to go to the bathroom (which never happens, because I’ve evolved beyond needing liquids to live), I’d think about it.  Finally, a hypnogogic conversation with myself provided the answer.

“John, what would you tell your best friend if he had this same problem?”

“Self,” I answered, “I would tell my friend to let it go.  It happened a year ago.  It wasn’t personal.  And it’s probably for the best.”

Coffee spelled backwards is eeffoc.  And before I have coffee, I don’t give eeffoc.

I had clarity.  I had an answer.  I had closure.  And it didn’t come from social media.  It came from thinking and understanding what advice I’d give my closest friend.  Since I hadn’t talked with, well, really anyone, I had to deal with it myself.

I finally did deal with it.  And now, when I wake up at 3AM?  I worry about the devil since I haven’t had to pee in a month.

Introspection is our friend, as long as we don’t allow ourselves to drown in a sea of self-pity, and as long as we use it to measure ourselves against virtue.  How do we measure it?

As near as I can find, Marcus Aurelius was religious, but certainly not a Christian.  As Caesar, he was the Humongous Maximus of religious stuff, and his writings wondered about what impact the gods had in the lives of men, at least after he got that petroleum from those pesky kids.

Marcus Aurelius, the early years.

The impact of religion is enormous.  When we live without a concept of a greater purpose, it’s like having pancakes without syrup, or thermonuclear weapons without the initial fission core that puts the hydrogen in H-Bomb.  With no greater purpose, our lives are less than what they could be.  As I’ve said before, most atheists aren’t atheists – they actually hate God, generally because they know that the life they are leading and/or the choices they are making are not virtuous.  They know it.

Of course, I’ve met (and almost every atheist reader here) atheists that don’t hate God.  Those folks?  We’re cool.  Generally, they don’t dislike people like me who believe in God, they just approach the world in a different way.  But I’ve noticed this about the atheists that don’t hate God – they generally like living in a society where people believe in God.  Why?  It’s a more virtuous society, and the streets are very empty on Sunday morning.

I won’t hold myself up to be Virtuous, or even virtuous.  I will note that I really, really do try.  I think I’m more virtuous this year than last year, though I shower less because of my greater virtue.  And that’s the point.  Every day, I try to be better inside than the last.  I try to make the world a bit better than it was the day before.  And I try to tell the Truth.

Unfortunately, I bet sometimes people still say after a post like this, “John Wilder?  Well, you can tell him from me, he’s an ass.”

Ha!

I’m not even awake.

The Space Between The Words

“Well, I don’t care if it was some dork in a costume. For one brief moment, I felt the heartbeat of creation, and it was one with my own.” – Futurama

I love my step ladder, but it’ll never be my real ladder.

It was March of 2005.  I remember it fairly well.  It was when we were living in Alaska.  The move had been a big risk for The Mrs. and I – moving north across the better part of a continent for work.  I was fortunate to have a good boss and good co-workers.

It was there that I had what I would normally call an epiphany, but epiphany seems too strong.  A realization?  Maybe.  Regardless, to me, it seemed profound.

The Space Between The Words . . . it was a throwaway line by a guest on a radio show that The Mrs. and I were listening to on KFBX, the local AM station.  But sometimes a phrase sticks with you, and this one stuck with me like the phrase “floozy crotch snout” sticks to Kamala Harris.

Or am I the only one who calls her that?

Yup, real quote.  Her real words are better than almost any meme.

Regardless . . . The Space Between The Words.  It seemed as insignificant as Hunter Biden’s willpower until in that hypnogogic state between wakefulness and sleep I thought about it . . . The Space Between The Words.

What exists there, in The Space Between The Words?

My realization was that The Space Between The Words isn’t made of silence.  It is far from that dead and sterile nothingness that silence implies.

My HVAC guy sure has his ducts in a row.

For me, that space is infinity.  It is the engine of creation itself.

I wrote “The Space Between The Words” down on a piece of Post-It® note and taped it to my computer monitor.  I still have that piece of now-faded pale yellow paper stuck in a book I carry with me every day.  To me, it is a touchstone and a personal reminder.

Why does it matter to me?

When I am talking, (or doing public speaking, which I do 10,000% more often than I want to do and potentially 20,000% more than the audience wants me to do) if I ever get flustered, I can just stop.  I can pause.  I realize that I can tap into The Space Between The Words, that creative power that allows me to choose whichever of the thousands of words I know as the very next one.  I get to choose that next phrase.  I get to choose the way the conversation can go.  I get to create the possibilities with only the choice of my words.

The Space Between The Words is crucial.

If I choose well, I can turn a simple conversation into something meaningful.  One of the powers of words is that, when applied correctly, is that they can become something transformative.  A simple conversation can change a person’s life forever.  Especially if it’s on tape – just ask Richard Nixon.

My buddy and I got a huge contract to make toy vampires.  There’s only two of us – I have to make every second Count.

The choice of words is, as I mentioned before, the power of creation.  I don’t claim to own that power.  Again, the word I would use isn’t that I came up with the idea or invented the concept I’m describing now.  I just discovered something that I’m sure many others before me knew was there, just like I discovered that someone was keeping a list of all of my jokes in a dad-o-base.

I won’t claim to be a great or charismatic public speaker.  I’ve had my moments.  But I do know that I’ve changed at least one or two lives through things that I have said, and I do know that I’ve said more of what I mean with greater clarity when I allowed The Space Between The Words to guide me.

I bet no one expected that meme.

Likewise, when I write, I don’t claim to be a great writer.  I do, however (when it’s not 3am!) try to carefully edit what I write so that it has the meaning I want to share.  Sometimes I don’t get there.  Sometimes, when writing one of these posts, the content takes a sharp turn, and I let it run.  I know that the full idea I was trying to get out will get born, eventually.

Or it won’t.

That’s the beauty of The Space Between The Words.  Even when writing, it is there.

And, to a certain extent, it has changed me.  I’m no longer afraid to stop, to pause, and to collect.  In one sense, that vast galaxy of creation that I feel I’ve tapped into is something much greater than I will ever be, especially if I keep losing weight.

I wonder what other planet worms exist on . . . otherwise why do we call them Earth worms?

In a religious sense, it feels like I’ve come into a brief (and unworthy!) contact with Logos – a deep universal well that I can only see dimly.  Not Legos®, but Logos.  Legos™ just hurt your foot when you walk down the hall in the dark.

In my experience, The Space Between The Words contains wisdom.  The Space Between the Words contains creation.  The Space Between The Words contains . . . redemption.

Listen for it – I assure you there is no silence there between the words.  There is no self-doubt.  It is calm.  It is patient.  It is Good.  And, for me, it has certainly been worth keeping that Post-It® note around.

Warning:  next week we’ll take a darker turn, probably all week, if not longer.  I’ll still try to be the “Mary Poppins of Doom” and interject humor and a smile where I can, but realize – there are many twists and turns ahead, and probabilities leading to a dark future are rapidly coalescing.