“Yes, sir! That’s exactly who I am and what I am, sir. A victim, sir!” – A Clockwork Orange
If someone named David is a victim of ID theft, do I have to call them Dav?
“As I’ve gotten older . . . I could not help but notice the effect on people of the stories they told about themselves. If you listen to the people – if you just sit and listen – you’ll find that there are patterns in the way they talk about themselves. There’s the kind of person who is always the victim in any story that the tell – always on the receiving end of some injustice. There’s the person who is always kind of the hero in every story they tell. The smart person – they deliver the clever put down. There are lots of versions of this. And you gotta be very careful about how you tell these stories because it starts to become you. You are, in the way you craft your narrative, kind of crafting your character. And so, I did at some point decide: I am going to adopt self-consciously as my narrative that I’m the happiest person anybody knows. And it is amazing how happy-inducing it is.”
-Michael Lewis
My first question after I read this was, “Okay, which Michael Lewis?” I’m thinking there might be a million of them, but the A.I. refused to even guess and then pouted and now won’t open the pod bay doors for me. So, I’m guessing that every other person in Michigan is named “Michael Lewis”. Regardless, the most famous author named Michael Lewis is the guy who writes interesting financial books, so I’ll assume it’s him.
The nice thing about water from Flint is that you can use it to make a Pb and Jelly sandwich.
Regardless of who wrote it, it’s a good and fairly true quote.
Why?
Attitude is everything.
If you believe you’re happy, if you talk about being happy, you’ll . . . be happy. As I’ve written before, being happy is really the easiest thing in the world. Many mornings I’ll run into the secretary administrative assistant at the door. Regardless of the weather, I’ll greet her with, “What a beautiful day it is!” It could be sunny and hot, rainy, cold, snowing, or even volcano-y. My greeting is the same.
Because it is a beautiful day. And, one thing I’ve learned is that the weather absolutely doesn’t care about me, at all. The snow doesn’t care that I love it. The hot day doesn’t care that I like cold weather, though I think it might be personal with the volcanoes. But I’m alive, breathing, walking and talking. If I spent all day hating a temperature reading, that wouldn’t leave me time to hate people who deserve it, like communists, leftists, and mimes.
How could the day not be beautiful? I get to choose how I feel, so why not be happy about it?
My insurance agent told me I can jump in an active volcano. Once.
I read the Michael Lewis quote and immediately recognized it to be a rule I’d been living with. I’ve written before about how absolutely horrid victims are to be around. Everything happens to them. They are at the center of their own story, but initiate no action. They have all the resilience of a bean bag, and are psychic vampires that attempt to suck emotional sustenance in the form of pity from their unwitting prey by demonstrating how mean the world has been to them. The technical term for this affliction is “Antifa® Member”.
They sing their own lives with their story. I avoid these types of people as if they were constructed entirely out of George Soros’ toe cheese, which I guess explains why he’s long been called the “Creamy-Fingered Puppet Master”.
George Soros wants to destroy our culture? I knew he was behind American Idol.
The Hero? I can live with them. Often, they’re really newts who brag about being distantly related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. They get their ego from being the one who has done the most, has the most gifted child, the cousin who went to Harvard®, and that they vacationed on Mars last summer. The Hero does this this because they feel awful about themselves, and need to bolster their ego by telling these stories.
Again, I’m okay with The Hero, since if you listen to their stories and don’t try to top theirs, they eventually can be good people to hang out with, and as they get older or develop trust with you they drop the act. They want to be liked, and if you like them for who they are, they often stop the Hero stuff.
The person who puts people down? I don’t meet that guy (or gal) often enough to have any sort of read on dealing with them. They just aren’t any in circle I’m in since I’ve been an adult. I guess that tells me lots about how successful the strategy of “being a complete tool” is.
What’s the difference between a Hoover® vacuum and a limo carrying George Soros and his son? The Hoover™ only has one dirtbag in it.
But there are lots of other ways to tell my story. The best part is that I get to choose. I get to choose to be the happiest guy people know. I get to choose to be the guy in the room that is calm when everything is going to hell (I really enjoy that one, and it comes naturally). I get to choose what I’m afraid of.
To be clear, this isn’t the Lefty talking point about “Your Truth®”. That’s bogus, and denies objective reality. Me? I don’t deny that it’s snowing. I don’t deny that it’s 103°F out. I don’t deny that that pesky volcano keeps following me around. But I do get to choose how that fact fits in with how I feel.
And so can you.
And so can those 5.04 million people in Michigan named, “Michael Lewis”.
Well, at least water doesn’t smell like rotten eggs. Then everyone would sulfer.
Ouuuuuch. That’s a good one.
Why do you call Alex Soros a dirt bag in your essay? Just look at him in the first linked photo below. There’s not a speck of dirt on his pretty white suit. And if you look closely, he’s gotta be one happy guy because he’s wearing rose colored glasses. The frames, not the lenses. I’ll bet you could be close friends with a guy like that if you just gave him a chance. You have a lot in common, for example you both like candy. You:Pez, and Alex:on his arm.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why-did-alex-soros-visit-biden-white-house-14-times
Anybody that can be The Happiest Guy I Know in today’s world is a Hero in my book. That’s why I’ll be coming back to read your next missive come Monday, John. 🙂
He’s hugging a dude.
Nervous laughter, looking around…. knives for lunch?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nervous laughter is laughter provoked from an audience’s expression of alarm, embarrassment, discomfort or confusion, rather than amusement. Nervous laughter is usually less robust in expression than “a good belly laugh”, and may be combined with confused glances or awkward silence on the part of others in the audience. Nervous laughter is considered analogous to a courtesy laugh, which may be rendered by more of a conscious effort in an attempt to move a situation along more quickly, especially when the comedian is pausing for laughter.
Nervous laughter is a physical reaction to stress, tension, confusion, or anxiety. Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran states “We have nervous laughter because we want to make ourselves think what horrible thing we encountered isn’t really as horrible as it appears, something we want to believe.”
John, I’m unclear what your essay is about. Maybe it’s about:
You cannot affect what life is handing you, but you CAN affect HOW you respond to it?
Maybe Michael Lewis is that sort you didn’t describe; he might be the one that can laugh at himself.
I find those folks the most resilient people in a situational disaster.
BTW you also forgot to mention the type of people that Must Always Be Right, even rewriting what they said to make themselves the victim of a misunderstanding.
Maybe founding members of THE PARTY described in 1984?
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Have an awesome day, take two mints on your way out, their small LOL
It’s 100% that you choose how you react, but that also changes the outcome. Be happy, and happy things happen. Or at least you don’t mind so much.
Good Droogie quote to combo the graphic. Yes clearly kind and temperate Alex was just a Victim all along. Sir.
Dear Mr. Happy please stop talking about erupting volcanoes. I live between two of them and presently have no car, thank you.
Hahaha! Okay, no volcanoes. For a while.
Victim mentality: The technical term for this affliction is “Antifa® Member”
I dunno, John. I’m looking at the crossword and there’s room for only three letters to respond to that clue….
Less facetiously, there are persons who are Hero-Victims. So many of our current “elite” have both unpleasant traits at the same time.
Indeed. It’s . . . offputting.
As “The Firesign Theatre” famously said, “You can believe me, because I’m always right and never wrong”.
Attitude is everything. One asshole dampens the whole room.
Indeed – which is why I avoid them. Can’t always do it, but I try.
I broke the upper bone in my dominant arm Wednesday. It was still a beautiful day! (Though the five hours in the ER wasn’t all that humerus.) Thanks yet again for your thoughts!
Get better!!! And don’t do whatever it was you were doing again.
And in a callback to my Wed comment joking about Trudeau nationalizing the Canadian gold industry as a Signpost On The Way To Collapse…
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chile-stuns-markets-and-ev-makers-nationalizing-lithium-industry-overnight
More of that will come.
Being a victim is a way to get that all important attention. It often seems that the internet serves no purpose other than providing a way for small people to get positive reinforcement from strangers.
Sounds like Alex
Exactly! Pugsley pointed out that in the 1980s that if there was a group that was sexually attracted to toasters, they’d have no one else to talk to about it and stop being sexually attracted to toasters. Now, there’s a Toastersex subreddit.
I play Skyrim and a character in the city of Windhelm at one point says, “Sometimes life puts you in circumstances you didn’t choose but being happy or unhappy is a choice that you make and I’ve chosen to make the best of it that I can.” Who says that video games never teach anything worthwhile?
Oh, they can. The Mrs. is a big Skyrim fan.
I am programming all Snake Plisken and Max Rocka into the new messiah AI bot so the garbage won’t come out at the end.
Just think of all the trouble point guard Plissken could have saved by shutting off the control grid back in 1997…but but but muh convenience?
You know, that movie gets better every time I watch it.
I am Micheal Lewis and it is a very beautiful day.
Have any beer? ‘Sure, but no Bud Light’
I had several over the weekend. And, no Bud Light.
Great post John. It is gratitude more than attitude if you get my drift.
Agreed. It’s always about the gratitude.
I like to approach the day as “almost Wonderful”. Actual Wonderful would be Not here & “Still in bed with the wife or mistress” (but not at the same time.) It could happen.
Almost? Yeah, that’s good enough.