When The Heart Breaks

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

This is not about me — for once — or not about me right now. I’m not here, now. I was here… well, more than once, starting at about 2003.

The last time, I woke up, in 2019, staring at the ceiling, and thinking “I could retire. It’s a thing I could genuinely do. Sure, this was never a traditional career, and I never made that much, but I could shutter the blog, close all the writing, turn the office into a craft room. Hit the local farmers’ markets and craft circuit.

Obviously I didn’t follow through on it, and there’s several reasons why not. And I’m glad I didn’t, because I think I might not be alive now. Or at least I might be on the way to not being alive.

There is a very old belief in uh…. cultures that believe in a gift from G-d or from the gods. Cultures that believe some things are divinely willed for humans to do/be. Let’s put it that way.

The belief can be summed at “The price of the extraordinary gift is to do it.” (Pratchett mentioned it more than once in his books.)

There is Dr. Peterson’s “If an artist stops creating, he starts dying.”

You have to be in an artistic/sy field for as long as I have to have seen it. It happens. It’s bad. It often manifests as a “lose your mind” type of illness, and then the body follows.

I have ideas of how that happens, but first I want to say it’s not just for artists, which is what Dr. Peterson missed, perhaps having encountered it only in artists, which these days, in our culture, are practically the only people allowed to have vocations that aren’t explicitly religious.

However, if you feel a strong pull/need to do something for years and years and years and you can’t/won’t allow yourself to/give up on it? You end up dying.

Look, we live in a very broken world. I knew for instance that the student loans things were messed up. Bad messed. And that Universities were bad messed. But when I said “I need to write on this,” and started digging and people started talking to me? Oh, mama. You have no idea how bad messed those things are. I had no idea how bad messed they were. That we’re still getting more or less semi-functional graduates in any field out of our current system is a miracle to a level I can’t begin to explain. It is that bad.

And it’s not just that. It’s any system I dig into. I’ve known about writing/publishing for years, and sometimes, it’s all I can do to not scream at people who think it is as portrayed in movies, or that “write a novel, become fabulously wealthy, if it’s a good novel” is a thing. It happens. Sort of. Sideways. And it’s always a miracle. Every single time. Because the system is optimized for it not to happen.

But a lot of you are in other fields: Building, engineering, various medical avocations, mechanics, physics, other stuff not coming to mind.

And I get emails that say “It’s the same for x.” And you tell me the very basics of it. And I don’t dig. I don’t dig, because I’m already horrified with what I know.

When you dig into any pocket you find there is a war on things that work, and a war on people that want to do the work. Yes, a lot of it is because of the Marxist infection. A lot of it is because of successive “fixes” applied by government. And a lot of it is “stupid stuff universities teach” like how to manage large, interconnected enterprises in ways that will never, ever, ever work, but will maximize misery. And some is simply because for a hundred years we’ve been running vast systems, with concentrated points of failure.

The “Vast systems” with “concentrated points of decision/control” were a result of the modes of industrial production that started in the 15th century or so, and came to full flower in the early twentieth. Large machines, concentrated in one place, requiring huge investment and massive amounts of raw materials, so best all of these in one big city, etc. You see how it would happen. What’s more/worse, the mode of thinking of “concentrated and standardized is best” propagated to everything else, from manner/modes of being in the world to government, to news reporting, to ‘art.’

Which is a lot of the root of our trouble. I’ve covered that in other posts recently.

In this one I want to talk about the human with a vocation/with a need to do something. The something exists in the world. They can theoretically do it.

Then human meets the broken systems. Which I don’t think are YET at peak broken, but are heading there.

As I said, I’ve seen it happen in writing, in art, in teaching, but I’m seeing it a bit everywhere.

You try, but no matter how much you try, how hard you work, or what you do, it seems like everything is against you. And because no one — no one — talks about it it openly, most people who are failing badly think they’re alone in this, and that everyone else is WILDLY successful: writers, artists, mothers (particularly of boys), teachers, etc. etc. etc.

You think “the system is broken? Or is it? Am I just making excuses for myself?” And you try harder. But since the system is actually designed NOT to work, (and you’re mostly seeing the successful people who are either flukes, a well polished facade, or people who are having transitory success and will be shredded later) you keep getting beat. Sometimes you have a little success first, but it all breaks apart later.

Another way to “fail” is to have a very strong brand, do very well with it, and then…. well, it falls apart. Either because you changed, and don’t do the thing the way you did it initially, or because — for artists, though I’m sure there’s parallels in other professions — your public changed. Or changed the way they see you.

Let’s say you’re to the right of Lenin (or these days, Stalin) and you’re a writer of science fiction and fantasy (or certain types of romance; or–), working in the indie side, you might very well build a huge audience, who run screaming when they find you’re one of those “evil right wingers” or who at least can’t withstand a loud and sustained cancel campaign. It’s happened to several of us. And then, of course, you start wondering why you feel called to do this, when you have political opinions so at variance with the “community who reads this” (Or at least the loud parts of the community. And this one is complex, because it’s hard to find readers, anyway, and if all readers think sf/f is left, a lot of people who would otherwise enjoy it don’t even try it out. Kind of like I keep running into “Science fiction is porn” which apparently is from…. guess? Oh, you’ll never guess. Clan of the Cavebear, which is neither science fiction nor porn, but some readers of a certain age associate that with both. That will change, as indie makes a dent. Takes time, though. I mean the association of SF/F and “left”.)

Okay, so…. Never mind why your heart broke. One day you wake up and you think “I just can’t do this anymore. It’s been my driving force since…. ever. But I can’t. I can’t anymore.”

What you’re experiencing, unless it’s your very first failure — and it usually isn’t — is … well, I call it a broken heart, but it’s actually ptsd and burnout.

The first time I hit burnout I had no idea what it was. So I bought a lot of books about it, and the conclusion was “burnout” and burnout caused by complete lack of control over one of the most important areas of my life. I’ve described my experience at the time as “having a lot of babies, and turning them over to people who just burn them to death, without even looking at them.”

The prognosis I got from the books was “You must change your work, so you have some control over it.” Well, it was 2008, and that was plain impossible. I should have walked and gone fully indie in 2011, but that’s something else. Paths not taken, and there were reasons of loyalty and friendship (I thought) not to do that. Water under the bridge.

The thing is, it didn’t get better. Writing became harder and harder. I did less and less of it, because well, you like to avoid the experience of getting kicked in the teeth. At least if you’re normal.

Slowly, slowly, I disengaged. I still did the work, if absolutely required, but I’d isolated it, made it so it wouldn’t hurt so much. And after 2015, I did very little of it.

That should have solved it, right? Except– it didn’t. The pain didn’t go away. The PTSD would still kick up every time I tried to write (of course, there’s PTSD. Again, getting kicked in the teeth hurts. Sane people avoid it.)

But the pain didn’t stop. There was never enough “quitting” and “Hiding” to make it better. What it did instead, is that I also didn’t want to do anything else. I’d have a transitory hobby crazy (would you believe carving eggs?) but quit as soon as I could do it somewhat, and never tried to market. Heck, cooking wasn’t happening. the house wasn’t getting cleaned. There was no garden work. After stopping writing/trying to stop writing, everything started going away.

A way to think about it is that this thing you always wanted to do/this vocation/this need is a part of you. When you decide to give it up, you’re killing a part of you. You can’t live when a part of you is dead. Little by little other parts of you follow.

It might just be psychological and “profound depression.” BUT little by little this changes the body too. You don’t walk. You eat whatever you eat when you’re depressed (in my case? bland and vaguely sweet, like, say crackers or popcorn. Other people eat ice-cream.) At the end, it kills you.

So, what do you do if your vocation/love is impossible? How do you live?

Subversively. No, seriously. Look, there are always ways to do things. If you can’t make a living from it, then find something else, make a living from it, but keep your hand in. Keep doing the thing, at least a little. And think of other ways to do “the thing.”

This weekend, when I thought I’d poisoned Indy, the local vets including emergency vet were either closed or “walk in” which in a thing of urgency is not helpful. So I went on line, and found a place where for $5 a month you can ask questions of vets (other specialties too.) And the vet answered in five minutes, and it turned out (when we got hold of a local vet who answered the phone) her answer was absolutely correct.

Now, I don’t know who this woman is, if retired and just doing this for cash, or if she had a vocation and got noped (veterinary medicine is another of those professions y’all email me about. Oy vey) and is doing something else, but keeping her hand in. I could conceivably seeing it being that.

What I mean, is there are ways to do things. Sometimes they are weird/bizarre/ strange but they exist. You can teach on youtube or in a blog, or in one of a hundred services that help you do that. You can fabricate things and put them up for sale. You can–

There’s a million ways to exert most vocations. Granted, not all. Some you’d have to be really, really creative (and possibly illegal.) But most.

So, what would I advise? If you’re burned out and exhausted and out of it? What if you stopped some time back?

Start small, with a task you can accomplish quickly or break into segments. Like, if you’re a writer, set a goal of writing 200 hundred words a day. Surely you can do that. They don’t have to be good. They have to be sequential and on something you’re working on for that time. Just 200 words.

When you’re done, do minimal editing (I’m using writing as an example) and put it out for sale. Don’t pay attention to the sales. Not yet. You’re working on “your success is putting it up.”

Keep going. You’ll find success builds on success. The only way to vanquish the broken heart is to do and keep doing. When you train the back brain in “I can do it” the brain changes. It starts identifying what you do as fun, because you get endorphins for it.

At the outset, don’t try to think how to be innovative, how to build a new thing, how to find a new pathway to the audience/customers. Just do small, succeed small.

Later, when you’re not quite so fragile, you can figure out how to sell gizmos to the masses. How to answer physics questions for pay. How to– whatever. Right now, just get some small wins to save your life and see you through.

Here is an addendum that’s for writers only, and I don’t know if it applies to everyone or not. If you’re a writer, you should read this. If you’re not, you might want to read it and see if it applies to your own journey.

This is the secret no one else will tell you: There is no career. The career is a lie.

The career is a product of all those movies when then guy spends 20 years writing the perfect novel, and it comes out to huge and never ending success. After which his career is going around and being thanked, fetted and acclaimed as a genius.

This is not how things work. If they ever did, I don’t remember hearing of it.

There used to be a career thing in writing, and some writers, older than I, have had a 30 or 40 year career in the same subgenre, under the same name, sometimes with ONE series.

But even then, it was the exception, rather than the norm. And after the publishers decided midlist wasn’t a thing? I suppose it could happen. I mean, I could win the lottery. It’s just very unlikely.

So what happens, instead of careers? What used to happen, under trad pub, is that you were accepted in whatever, and you ran with it. If you were sufficiently successful, even if your publisher dropped you, you’d be picked up by someone else. And the someone else could be a completely different career, because the field was changing. (The Heinlein of the juveniles, versus later-novelist, for instance. Or the Heinlein of the periodicals, versus the Heinlein of the book publishers.)

But more often, at least when I came on the series, what happened is that you wrote three books and then either the publisher dropped you, and you had to go trying to find another, which could mean completely different field/feel for another house; or the publisher told you to change genres/name. So, you know, I started with Ace in Literary Fantasy, moved over to Prime crime in Historical Mystery, moved over to craft mystery. One house, three names, three genres. Started over elsewhere with historical semi-literary fantasy. Started over elsewhere with urban fantasy, moved to space opera (fortunately no names changing.) Sold another historical fantasy on the side. Only it’s all jumbled, at sort of the same time.

But you sort of understood that it wasn’t a career so much as little careers. Your public for, say, historic mystery and space opera would be completely different, most of the time. (Though some fans would follow you.)

And you changed over time, too. All the moving around maybe. Or maybe people do.

I keep semi-joking I’ll go back and do the last two books of the magical Shakespeare biography. Could I do it? Sure. It would take a long time, because I haven’t worked in Tudor England for a long while. I could do it. I just don’t feel a drive to. Because in a way I’m not the person who wrote it, the person for whom it was very important.

Heck, even things I had planned and want to finish, like the more recent stuff, take work to get my mind back there. Worth it, because i still love the place and the people, but it takes effort. And there’s other things things I want to do.

Technically, there are several careers in there, and now I’m starting again, in indie.

But what if you were always indie? There is still no career. There are careers. There are things you want and need to do at certain ages. It’s who you are then. And if you find your public, it might trap you as effectively as trad did. “But I can’t do that. My fans will hate it.”

Some fans will. Others will love it And some will discover you with it.

Everything you write some people will love, some people will hate. Some people will come to discover you over it. And some people will abandon you over it. You can’t control it. Might as well not try.

So, what if you wrote/said something and all your fans left you?

Start again. This is not your career. Just a segment of it. Start again. Write what needs to be written, what you need to write. (Sure, don’t be precious. Don’t write things you know/suspect no one will like. Or do, but don’t expect it to sell. Writing incomprehensible stuff, say, is onanism, not art. And art is always communication. Art without an audience is onanism or a government contract.) Do it. Start small. Make the completion your win.

When you’re healthier, figure out how to reach an audience. (You might do it by accident.)

Do it boldly, unapologetically, subversively.

And if you’re not “the type of person who writes that/makes that” or “the entire ‘community’ is well, these days mostly “woke”. Or but I’m a person “of color” and “artistic” or “gay” or whatever, and “When they realize I’m not leftist I won’t have an audience.”

Don’t believe it. That’s the chains totalitarians forge to own you, body and soul. Pull them off. Ignore them.

Do the things that they say you have to be white/purple/left to do. Just do it.

Even if you never get rich, or as good as you want to get, the fact that you do it and are out there, doing it, pursuing it, is an example for other people who think they have to submit to group think to be “artists” or “creative” or whatever.

Do the thing you need to do. I’m not promising you wild success. I’m not promising your heart will ever be completely healed. I know it’s hard to work with a broken heart.

But if you do it, you get to live.

And you’ll show others the path of life.

114 thoughts on “When The Heart Breaks”

  1. There’s been times where I’ve just wanted to create, but nothing comes out.

    Nothing wants to get made.

    And those are low days because the world is just so flat and boring.

    All I can do…is stay calm and keep up the fight.

    Liked by 2 people

  2. Why is everything the Leftroids want dysfunctional and impractical?

    Because if it was practical, people would already be making money on it, and that’s Eeevul. Rewarding failure and punishing success is not an accident.
    ———————————
    It surely is a wonderment how rich the heads of ‘non-profit charity organizations’ get.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Wonderment, my foot. It’s deliberate. A lot of those “charities” are tax shelters.

      Practical example: Let’s assume I win the lottery. Collect a prize of $10 million as a lump sum. If I take that money, the IRS knocks on my door to collect $3.9 million as Federal income tax, the Maryland Comptroller wants another $900K for state and local income tax. 48% taxes.

      But I can donate half of that $10 million to charity. So I start a charity that I control. Shove $5 million into that. The tax collectors get $2.4 million, I have $2.6 million free and clear…and another $5 million in a “charity” that I can run to my benefit. Invest the money, collect ~$250K/year in proceeds. Spend perhaps 10% of that on legitimate charity, spend the rest on myself.

      The highest rates of tax ACTUALLY PAID are not borne by the wealthiest Americans. They are paid by the Payer Class…professionals, skilled craftsmen, small businessmen. The Truly Rich have tax protections.

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  3. I need to get off my backside and finish that Space Guard novel I’ve been playing with.

    Although with any luck, I’m about to un-retire, at least in part. I’ve been teaching very part-time (meaning ~60 billable hours/year). Things are starting to pick up.

    Liked by 2 people

  4. No matter what I do, I end up teaching. Something different, to different people, but teaching. Pulling together all sorts of research and fields and specialties into a package for other interested people. Why? Beats me.

    And telling stories, some of which happen to sell on Amazon.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. M. Rawn and her Dragon Prince 3 book series, the followup Dragon Star 3 book series. Stopped writing after finishing Skybowl. She stopped writing for awhile. She started back writing and has a number of novels out. But she has explicitly stated that she is never going back to the world she created for those two series.

    I follow a lot of authors who have published under different names depending on genre, or even series within the same genre.

    I understand the whole “I must”. I didn’t find it hard to walk away from forestry, after all I could get my outdoor fix ruff camping, hiking, and backpacking (“you do What for fun?” was never heard, not ever). But the computer stuff. Not so easy. I about went nuts the 17 months I was looking for work. Even tried contracting (oh hell no). At that point I didn’t see how I could ever fully retire. I’d go nuts. Turns out I was wrong. Eventually had no problem walking away. But that is me.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. I’m not at all sure “the system is broken and works against those who are actually good at what they do” is anything but the historical norm.

    Consider Twain’s Connecticut Yankee. He sets up a war college to train soldiers and military leaders in modern warfare, including “modern” (19th Century) strategy. Gets them all up to snuff in his own view. And presents his graduates to the King, who determines that none of them are noble birth, and dismisses them in toto, because they cannot be good — they’re not noble.

    Real, genuine meritocracy is a threat to the ego of everybody, even the people of top merit, because while they me be at the top today, things change, and tomorrow they could be on the way down. Hence the never-ending “screw you, I’ve got mine” cycle of rule-changing in, well, everywhere.

    American meritocracy worked reasonably well (never perfectly, and never without attempts to set up a new aristocracy), because basically everybody could see that, whatever its imperfections, it worked really, really well. Even the academics and would-be aristocrats, who hated it, couldn’t go against it, because everybody else was for it.

    They have spent a hundred and thirty years tearing away at that knowledge, from the first progressive movement onward. It’s not communism or socialism, it’s just humanity in general. “I want to get to the top, and then I must stay there.” And so “the rules” become a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, popping up here, disappearing there, because of both “screw you, I’ve got mine” and “I’m better than you and the fact that I’m on top proves it (never mind how I keep changing the rules to ensure that you lose)”.

    Look at the way they keep indicting Trump, against all reason and evidence and logic. They know he is bad, because he is not One Of Them. They have no fucking idea what playing the Red Queen at court openly is doing to their social position, they only know that Trump Must Be Punished for the sin of winning when they decreed that he must lose.

    That ain’t socialism, that’s pure human tribalism and social metaphysics. They are too ignorant to have any idea that it will work against them, and quick.

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    1. “Look at the way they keep indicting Trump, against all reason and evidence and logic. They know he is bad, because he is not One Of Them.”

      And notice how the same GOPe suspects are saying that means we should dump him.

      Liked by 2 people

    2. Never ceases to amaze me how many folks object to the success of others. Because Envy and Jealousy are a thing.

      I like to be surrounded by people who exceed me. Inspires my efforts. Plus, sometimes folks think if I am hanging out with giants, I must be pretty tall too. And wow, sometimes I actually do manage to grow a bit taller.

      I find all sorts of useful bits here in this forum, for example.

      Successful people almost always busted their ass to get there. That is also a reminder to check what you want versus how hard you are willing to work to get it. Shortcuts are almost always -not-.

      And I was -much- happier when I realized that the condemnation of assholes is actually praise. Also, preening in their ire really annoys them.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. As has been noted before, first-rate people hire first-rate people. Second-rate people hire third-rate people. The really competent aren’t threatened by other competent people, but the less-competent often can’t stand having anyone around who can do the job better than they can.

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    3. Connecticut Yankee was good satire, and very good at presenting why America was different. (And notice, he didn’t make his hero a Southerner, because reasons.)

      OTOH, later all his research into Joan of Arc would have revealed that in the real medieval world, it wasn’t all that simple. (I still haven’t gotten around to reading more than a couple of pages of his historical novel, possibly because he is So Darned Fannish about Joan, but I will someday. It is supposed to be really good once it gets going.)

      A bunch of mercenary troops of whatever kind of birth would not have been a problem for the real King Arthur in late Roman/post-Roman times, other than being concerned if they would switch allegiance if not paid. And of course archery troops of common birth were the key to English war successes in some periods.

      Liked by 1 person

          1. Hey, she gets to nitpick my example for reasons having little to do with the point I was making, I get to nitpick how silly it is to point out that the Connecticut Yankee was not southern.

            If Twain was a gateway writer, he’s the only one I know of who only had access to the gateway intermittently.

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            1. And was not wrong to do so. Remember that scene from Gone With The Wind where all the young Southern men were firmly convinced they’d win, and Rhett Butler is mocking them for fools? Yeah.

              Like

      2. Eh, it suffered because his hero was a clod who wouldn’t have appreciated Camelot if it were everything its most starry eyed admirers said it was. When we read it over the summer for high school, most of us thought it was satirizing the Yankee.

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  7. I should be making movies. I never have, perhaps I never will. I’m getting to be almost okay with that. (Though putting together ten thousand to fund a no-budget movie is much more achievable than anything even “small” budget, these days.)

    I should be writing. But the worlds in my head exist there, and I’m less bothered that they haven’t gotten out than I used to be. Hopefully, that is temporary.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Actually, I learned of the condition you’re calling PTSD and burnout as “learned helplessness.”

    Of course, the “Heck, cooking wasn’t happening. the house wasn’t getting cleaned. There was no garden work. After stopping writing/trying to stop writing, everything started going away.” is pretty much what I was going through (substitute coding for the writing) after returning from Desert Storm, and that was diagnosed as clinical depression by a mental health professional we knew.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Don’t know if it was better; but I sat down, made a list of all the things I was doing pre-deployment, showed my wife for feedback, and then brute forced myself back into doing them one at a time. I’m maybe 90% of what I was now, so it was effective. But it took well over a couple of years to get there.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. The problem is, those depressive behavior tracks are still there, in the background. They’re not completely erased, only suspended. This also seems to be supported in the clinical cases of depression that I’ve seen, as well as in addiction and alcoholism. Which is probably why recidivism is so common, it’s easy to fall off the wagon. Then you need to remember to run and catch up to hop on again. It helps to have someone else who you know and trust who can rely on to let you know when you’re sliding off, and is forgiving enough if you snap at them. (Displaced anger from yourself can be a trial.)

            Liked by 1 person

  9. BTW, anyone see the FBI murdered a guy in Provo Utah for complaining about our FBI and Administration? They claim he made threats against the President, but my read is that they just missed being threats, but were of concern. They sent a SWAT team instead of a phone call and request to be interviewed by agents or Marshalls. The guy walked with a cane, was 300 lbs, caring for a disabled son in the home he was killed in.

    The FBI got an easy kill, no credible threat to the safety of their agents (in spite of his declaration to meet them in his home with a gun), and wonderful optics of eliminating a threat to the Administration, as well as sending a message to the rest of the opposition.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That fits my suspicions. Where was the gun? If they shot him for coming out armed, where’s the weapon? Surely someone would have said AR-15, or “assault rifle,” or ‘tactical shotgun,” or something. Silence.

      Nothing about it smells right.

      Liked by 1 person

        1. The reports of the posts (since I haven’t seen the alleged FB posts), don’t appear to be any more threatening than ones I’ve seen mentioned here, or on other conservative commentary. Pretty standard prepper rhetoric. And strong dissatisfaction and criticism of the government. We may be winning the info/influence war, but the Feds look like they’re starting the taking ’em to the cattle car phase. All I can say is they better not come to my house and shoot my cat.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. I read an article on some “mainstream” news site (can’t remember which now, I checked 4 or 5 of them) that had text quoted from his social posts, including typos and [sic], and followed the quotes with embedded posts…that had no typos.

            So what the hell were they up to? Did they fake the posts — poorly? Get the text quotes wrong? Embed an Instagram post from someone else who copied what the guy said or whose words were blamed on him?

            Damifino. But I do know it stinks.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. More to the point — the FBI does NOT investigate threats against the president, or a selection of other high officials!

              That is the job of the Secret Service, and it is in fact one of their specialties to end such threats peacefully, by becoming buddies with the threateners and seeing how they can help them get a better attitude through conversation, chores, whatever.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. CBS News did a story which includes an interview with a former Secret Service guy, who has a pre-recorded interview early in the piece, where he keeps his eyes down and appears to be reading his responses off a screen or sheet of paper. Later he has a live spot.

                That news story says the FBI had been investigating this guy for months, for mouthing off online against various political figures… so you can’t tell me they didn’t know that he was disabled.

                But several of the figures “threatened” were Secret Service jurisdiction, so they should have handed over the case if they were actually concerned.

                The Secret Service’s official statement said that they referred all questions on the incident to the FBI, so apparently they are not supporting the FBI’s screwup.

                The ex-Secret Service guy does not even mention in the pre-recorded that it’s his old agency’s jurisdiction, and that the FBI obviously screwed up. You used to get at least hints of sparks behind the scene, but this guy just looks old and defeated and submissive in the pre-recorded segment.

                He looks a little better in the live appearance, but his eyes are still down. He says the Secret Service did “cooperate” and that they “had a presence” at the raid, but that’s still a reversal of jurisdiction. It also sounds like the FBI is doing a lot of this, so I guess the Secret Service is having this happen most of the time.

                Also, he claims that we’ve never had a more politically extreme environment in our country, so I guess the entire Civil War (and lots of other times, for that matter) was just a happy picnic between friends.

                Liked by 1 person

          2. But it’s only a few guys……

            https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2023/08/10/christopher-wrays-fbi-first-they-came-for-the-catholics-n790077

            Links in article, within my quote.

            “The FBI rescinded the memo, but the effect was no less chilling. When Wray was questioned by the House Judiciary Committee concerning this FBI targeting, he claimed that the action was only taken by the Virginia field office, not across multiple offices.

            That, too, was a lie. The memo was not produced by a single field office. FBI offices in Portland and Los Angeles were also involved.”

            Liked by 1 person

    2. And was he even the one who made the post, or was it someone deflecting from themselves and he/his account was handy? Followed by lack of proper investigation. Iz FBI.

      Liked by 1 person

    4. Isolate the “who” for a moment. Is it possible that this was just another lost soul committing “suicide by cop” , who wanted an really expert person to end it for him?

      Not to praise the players, but did you ever wonder if “suicide by Gestapo” was a thing for severely depressed people in the Reich?

      I have been thinking quite a bit about that Provo person. I actually know a person who, as their deteriorated, talked bigger and bigger. The end was different, but that pattern was kinda hard not to see.

      Flip that around, such a person is also absurdly easy to manipulate into a fatal mistake. So yes, I can see that too. But he seems like way too small a potato for those sort of folks. Not connected to any real big group to intimidate except a religious group, and he was way on the periphery of it. And unless we start seeing this as routine terror of small fry, hard to see why he was even worth the effort from a “send a message” scenario.

      …

      And a huge FU to the folks who deliberately deteriorated things to the point where this is a rational conversation. FU with a flaming pineapple sideways.

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      1. I have a mutual friend. I’m waiting to discuss it, but right now I’m inclined to view it as a setup to off someone pour epater les bourgeois.
        Did we ever figure out why Ashli Babbit had to die? Becuse this seems like the same.

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        1. It is essential to remember that sometimes stupid/shitty people do impulsive stupid/shitty things, and it just is, not part of some grander scheme.

          “Why does that org do s/s things? What overarching objective do they serve?”

          Sometimes, the answer is, the s/s types hire s/s types, who then do s/s things, to which the other s/s folks say “so?”.

          Fallen world, and all that. Of course, we were given the answer for that.

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  10. Every field I’ve been in, or adjacent to, does seem to run on the ragged edge. Often things get done not because of upper management guidance, but despite the misguidance. And it can be things ‘advance’ or things ‘mundane’ – it doesn’t matter

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    1. I was thinking about the skilled trades – plumbing, construction, electrical, HVAC, what-have-you. All the codes, regulations, LEED-certifications, recurrent training on thing-not-of-safety, code requirements that don’t fit local conditions … A lot of which has zilch to do with the plumbing flowing properly, but keeps bureaucrats and activists employed. “See, we’re doing something!” If all you want to do is fix cars, repair rotted-out window frames, and so on, instead of spend time learning building codes, well, you’re sort of out of luck.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. It probably wasn’t an accident that Charles Schultz died the day of the last Peanuts strip. He had to have been failing to give it up.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. When you wonder why politicians and Federal judges keep going…this is why. In office, they are Very Important People, doing Very Important Things. Retire, and they are next to nothing.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. I have been a writer since 1979. I took up the quill, and never put it down. Now, I can’t. As you say, “The price of the extraordinary gift is to do it.”

    For me, that’s always been a burden easy to bear. I write a blog, and that helps, but the real deal is when I can write SF. My problem is that the writing is fun; learning how to do the indie publication bits is work. I have some covers and I have a plan, but THIS needs editing, THAT needs a couple pages added here and there to cover some things, THE OTHER THING is ready to go but for formatting and cover, and I’m one person who must hold down a full-time job while also maintaining a household.

    And the job I do to pay the bills? The people in charge seem to be systematically removing all the tools my peers and I need to do the work they pay us to do. “…[Y]ou find there is a war on things that work, and a war on people that want to do the work….” And damned if that ain’t true. They’re making it impossible to do the work, and they’re making it impossible to stay there to do the work.

    Well, as Jerry Pournelle was heard to say, “It’s a full life if you don’t weaken.”

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  14. “However, if you feel a strong pull/need to do something for years and years and years and you can’t/won’t allow yourself to/give up on it? You end up dying.”

    I am in the process, after 40-ish years of IT careers (you’re 100% correct about that) attempting — again — to get back to the role that started my love of computers.

    Your books and blogs helped me get through cancer and this post showed up the day I made up my mind to try…

    A “good omen”, if one believed in that type of thing. Or “Confirmation from Above”, if one believed in that.

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  15. “And this one is complex, because it’s hard to find readers, anyway, and if all readers think sf/f is left, a lot of people who would otherwise enjoy it don’t even try it out. ”

    That’s why I quit reading SF, then quit submitting, and that was in 1979. It wasn’t even necessarily the woke thing at the time, although that really made me quit submitting because, unlike our Hostess, I wasn’t skilled enough to pretend to go along with it. Every attempt made my writing worse and useless. The problem wasn’t just misandry or even the contempt for unblessed ideas, it was the elimination of the individual. It felt like reading Soviet Science Fiction. Yes, I read a certain amount of that. Individuals were just cardboard cutouts to be acted upon by implacable exterior forces. The characters weren’t even allowed to rage against such a fate. They just blandly submitted to the whims of the chosen story-line.

    I know that now, with indie, I should go back to buying SF, but, partly I’m catching up on the non-fiction classics I missed (Democracy in America, Two Years Before the Mast, The Vision of the Anointed, etc.), and partly I’m too lazy to find the stuff I like. There’s an essay brewing in the back of my mind about the root of the problem, but it’s hard to make things simple. Not simplistic. That’s easy but phony, but people will latch onto simple even if it’s wrong and evil, until they’re presented with something equally simple but true.

    I didn’t fit in the corporate world, but I prospered nonetheless. I liked writing software. It was fun, and nobody seemed to know enough to tell you that you were doing it wrong–as long as it worked. Once I received the “Quality Award” for our site of 320 employees. At the ceremony I sidled up to the head of our site and said, “You know every person who has won this award, won it for doing something that his immediate superior told him not to do. We should think about that.”

    My blog is not about politics, or technology, or history, or personal experience. It’s about each of them in different essays. I refuse to specialize, so I call it Musings of a Restless Mind. My works for sale currently consists of a “work biography” and 7 short stories, 2 SF, 2 Fantasy, 3 horror.

    I’m sure I’m doing everything wrong, but in the defiant words of John Carter, “I still live!” Take that and suck on in universe!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. nobody seemed to know enough to tell you that you were doing it wrong–as long as it worked
      …………………

      Truth!

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  18. Most of my life, as I was falling asleep I would make up stories in my head. That went away in the last decade and now I’m wondering if I lost something important when it did. Does that make any sense? Could I even get that back?

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    1. Are you too tired when you go to bed? That sounds weird to ask, but I sleep -much- better it I do not wait until the need is desperate. And putting my mind on a “nice” course” helps me sleep. You make sense to me.

      And I get much more tired now, then in earlier decades.

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  19. Poking my head up from the lurker level to say thanks. School starts in 6 days and for the first time in 25 years, I was wondering if I had enough in me to walk back into the classroom. I appreciate the reminder that not doing what I’m meant to do is worse for me than doing it while juggling the insane requirements of the state, the board, and the administration, none of whom understands the adolescent mind (not that I do, either, but at least I can get it moving in the right direction if left alone long enough to TEACH it). So back I will go with this post printed out to read at lunch time on days when I think longingly of working at our local convenience store.

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  20. Oh, and regarding the horrors you find when you dig into a profession… I’ve started telling people who claim they could never teach their children at home because the little darlings need to socialize so as to not turn out weird “let me tell you what you’re not seeing.” Then I proceed to lay out exactly what that “socialization” looks like even in a small school in a conservative community with teachers who, by and large, are too old, cantankerous, and/or intelligent to be woke. I subversively attempt to do myself out of a job with every conversation because you’d be better off letting the kids run wild in the woods than send them into a building with their peers and cell phones. (And if I ever write a book about education, “Let Me Tell You What You’re Not Seeing” will be the title of my first chapter!)

    Liked by 1 person

    1. So, I kind of figured it when the same school that was putting my kid in suspension because he had sensory issues (that’s what it amounted to, and the fact he was being creatively bullied by a bunch of girls) was letting a kid hold a classroom hostage with a knife, and didn’t punish him at all because he was “underprivileged”.
      My kid could be put in suspension because he missed a mumbled instruction to take out a book, or because a classmate said he gave her a dirty look, BUT a psycho with a knife threatening to kill people? Underprivileged.
      I brought the kid home to homeschool, and only let him go back because he wanted to (to another school.) In retrospect I shouldn’t have let him.

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      1. This happened in the elementary school building I attended 60+ years ago.
        Reasonably small town, still mostly conservative, still mostly Christian.

        https://notthebee.com/article/school-in-texas-facing-protest-from-parents-for-allegedly-covering-up-the-sexual-assault-of-a-first-grader-by-another-first-grader

        My kids got out of school mostly unharmed, but if I had it to do over again today we would homeschool. Grandkids are currently divided between a good private school, a decent public school, and the “educational” debacle that helped lead to the tragic death of our grandson.

        Liked by 1 person

  21. Pingback: accomplishing not much | Dio's Workshop

  22. I belong to a critique group and our motto is: “Writing is hard!” So, if one of us turns in something sloppy and unformed, my group points out the flaws with kindness. But none of us ever says: “This is worthless. Why did you turn this in?” Because we know that every bit of writing torn out of our hearts and put on the page is important.

    In 2019, Herman Wouk got up in the morning at the age of 103, sat down at his writing desk, dozed off over his latest work, and never woke up. What a way to go.

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Before he went worms in the head crazy (at least in public), Stephen King described writing as something one did because one must. The words kept coming and writing them down was essential compulsive.

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  24. I think one of the reasons I haven’t seen the insanity up close and personal is because I work for an explicitly Christian non-profit organization, which therefore tends to resist leftist infiltration better than most organizations. (Not that that’s guaranteed, but any leftist infiltration would need to disguise itself in the trappings of Christianty — concern for the poor, and so on — and leftists aren’t always good at imitating Christians very well.) The other thing that makes my organization more resilient than most is its sharp focus on one specific goal, which is not poverty relief, so if someone proposes some program to help the poor that turns out to have a leftist Trojan Horse embedded in it, my organization’s reaction would likely be along the lines of “That’s a laudable goal, but that’s not something we’ll be getting involved with; talk to other organizations about doing that.” (And that’s if they don’t spot the Trojan Horse.)

    Result, I actually get to do what I do best — software development — and use my God-given talents to serve Him. Which is very fulfilling.

    Why do I say this? Not to brag, but to make a point. That laser-like focus on one goal can be a way of inoculating yourself and your organization against leftism, because sooner or later the leftism ends up diverging from your goal. Also, if you strongly believe in Truth with a capital T, and you’re consistent in pursuing Truth, that is another strong inoculator.

    In The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan paints a picture where his protagonist (named Christian — Pilgrim’s Progress is not exactly subtle as an allegory) is walking a narrow path through a swamp (a “slough” as it was called at the time) named Despond. As long as he keeps his eyes firmly fixed on his goal, the shining city that represents Heaven in Bunyan’s allegory, his feet stay on the road. But once he takes his eyes off the goal, his feet slip off the road and he sinks into despondency and starts to have all kinds of problems. What I’m saying is that both organizations and individuals can experience the same thing: Bunyan has an excellent point to make. Keep your eyes on the goal and you’re unlikely to get sidetracked. Take your eyes off the goal and you’re going to end up in the swamp sooner or later.

    Which isn’t exactly the same thing as Sarah’s thesis with today’s post, but it’s definitely related.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well put.

      If you are trying to get somewhere, you cannot allow yourself to be pulled too far from the focus on the objective. Situational awareness prevents ambushes, however, if you are always looking around at the immediate, you are not looking to where you are actually going.

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      1. American dictionaries say “swamp” or a “shallow lake system.” I did find one that said it was a “wetland.”

        The Cambridge dictionary says it’s an “area of soft, wet land.” Which would include the above definitions, but also a lot of other places.

        Apparently the Old English “sloh” was “soft muddy ground,” and Etymonline says some places in England actually use it for stuff like a mudhole in a dirt road. But it can also be used for a quagmire, which seems to be more fitting for the Slough of Despond thing.

        Of course, the UK has that nasty thing where you can be walking along a nice green grassy moor, and suddenly be caught in a nice green grassy quagmire. So maybe that’s the idea?

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  25. I was an ET in the Navy, I worked on gear worth millions of dollars and systems that would make people freak out. I worked on and repaired radios, TV’s, power supplies, you name it if I didn’t work on it, I probably looked at one. With all that accumulated knowledge, I still can’t get my supposed smart TV to link up with my sound system. Arrrggghhh

    First world problems suck.

    No I don’t want help, that is why I didn’t include systems names, I’ll figure it out, eventually. SIGH…Grumble grumble, bastard crap. &*^%$#

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    1. Is this one of those things where there’s a secret Bluetooth code, which only shows up on smartphones and not on tablets?

      Because I hate that, and I guess enough people hated it that it’s going away.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Every single time someone asks what I did before I retired when they hear “wrote software” I get asked. “Oh. How do I deal with this problem?” with software I’ve never heard of (or have, but never used). My response is “I wrote software. I don’t use it.” ;-) They even believe me. Not true obviously, using a lot of software now just responding to the blog. But people sometimes. Although sometimes I respond “IDK I didn’t write it.” Which is true.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. I know the feeling. I started working with microcomputers with the Mits Altair 8800 when it came out in 1974. The hardware-software interactions could drive a sane man, on solid ground, BSC. We had to do a lot of the engineering to get a system up and running. That ended with the arrival of the IBM PC (actually inferior to the S-100 bus systems out there we worked on). Viasyn’s (Compupro/Godbout Electronics) 80286 system wildly outperformed the IBM AT. People at shows thought Godbout had a monitor connected to a VAX, rather than what Jerry Pournelle called “The Boat Anchor” System.

      Having said that, much of the current stuff turned me grey. A lot of it just isn’t worth messing with, but being the Engineer I am, I just couldn’t let go for some years. As I have aged (now 68) I have settled down somewhat and don’t worry about most of the nonsense that does not promise to add to my life. I quit watching TV over 20 years ago as just one example of the rubbish that I have purged from my life. A simple stereo suffices for my desires in music.

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      1. By the by, I was a QM in the Navy. I went onboard with a reserve enlistment with 2 years active duty in addition to boot and QM ‘A’ school. Then I trundled off to engineering school. That was back in the early 70s when the way the politicians fought Vietnam made a mess of the services (I was standing watch on the Courtney and listened to the radio broadcast of the treaty being signed to end the SE Asian festivities). We are far worse off now.

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  26. I was watching an interview of Floor Jansen talking about her Burnout, and egad, it was all too familiar. Certainly not for the same reasons (outward, not underlying) but I’ve been fighting many of the same things. It sneaks up and carries more than a bit of the black dog with it, and then tends to cause more black dogs to follow. I can’t put to words just what is going on, but damnit I am tired of it going on, and my body thinks I should be exhausted, judging by how often of late I fall asleep as soon as I sit down.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yep. at least 15 years now, and I’m JUST starting to recover.
      For some reason it caused a bunch of physical issues. Like the Thyroid? it’s a response to infection/illness which in turn is because my autoimmune spun up.
      … when I say it can kill you?

      Liked by 1 person

  27. Hmm. If I squint real hard, and cock my head just so, I might classify Clan of the Cave Bear as “alternative history” – and thus entitled to be recognized as a cousin. Definitely not at all porn, though.

    However… Tarnsman of Gor was definitely not all all porn, either. The series developed into that, though (although, IMHO, not until Nomads of Gor, the fourth entry). So far as I know (not having completed the series), Earth’s Children never went full-on porn – but it certainly became rather “pornish” with the second volume.

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  28. I’ve been showing all the heartbreak symptoms since Jan 2021. Don’t know that it’s related directly to writing so much as needing to discover what I can still do.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. yeah. Well, it didn’t help that I had to change everything around the time my role as “mom” was passing, because the boys were or should be out on their own. (The should be was harder. But…. more or less fixed now.)

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      1. We’ve made a conscious effort to step back from being parents even though son still resides in our house. We treat him like a roommate. He is an adult. All we want to know is, is he eating dinner with us or not. Oh. He gets to house sit when we take off somewhere too. Helps with projects. But hey, he’d get to do all that anyway if he had his own house or apartment and still was local. Kind of like I still pickup mom’s mail and water her plants when she is gone. Projects? No. She has her grandson for that and he doesn’t even live with her. It is called: Family.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. like “Do you want to have dinner with us or not?”
            ……………….

            We don’t do that. It is “If you have a work potluck or going out with friends, let us know. We’ll adjust.” The other adjustment we have had to make is to check in when we travel. OMG the time we didn’t. We got a lecture when he called. We looked at each other and the look was “Wait! Who are the parents here?” Our response was a humble “Yes. We will.” We do too. It might have been a mistake to tell certain stories after we got back from some of our trips. We were never in any danger, except that those two times hubby fell. Yes, we are there. Not helped because he protects the camera. To be fair it is because he it taking pictures, not paying attention to where moving to, that causes him to stumble. Age is factor for inability to recover sometimes.

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  29. What a wonderful essay! I’m a first-time reader and came across you through a reference to this essay yesterday by the, um, controversial Vox Day. I’ve scanned other parts of your blog and they are good, too. I read the excerpt of Darkship Thieves on Amazon and it hooked me so I bought the hardcover. I’m a bit older and can afford it. Keep up the good work! There are others, like-minded, out there.

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  30. I feel my dreams die and a piece of my heart die every day I sign on to do my job (that I have had for 9 1/2 years) doing school-based Medicaid claiming analysis and processing.

    Doubly so on Mondays.

    My heart wants to write and create music.

    My ego says a lot of conflicting shit.

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