The Slicing Edge of Freedom a Blast from the Past from May 24, 2017

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The Slicing Edge of Freedom a Blast from the Past from May 24, 2017

I’m sorry I’m so late with this.  The post at MGC took far longer than I expected.

I started to explain how much more freedom we, who deal in stories and words, have nowadays.  I don’t know if anyone who is not in the business can fully appreciate how much.  It’s so much, in fact, that many in the business still don’t believe it.

I remember circa 98, when no one was buying Darkship Thieves blowing up with something like “I wish writers could just sell their work on the street and at fairs” (I lived in Manitou Springs, then, a small town in the Colorado mountains, with a surprising number of working artists, some of whom are actually very good.  None of them were “known” but they sold and made a living in stalls, store fronts, co-ops and fairs.)

Well, now we can do one better.  We can set up our little stall on line and attract a global audience.  We’re free to write anything, regardless of what “real publishers”TM think of it.  Note for instance how well military science fiction does with the public in general, even though the only publisher who would buy it (for decades) was Baen.  We’re free to have it copyedited or not.  Yeah, some people don’t, and some people aren’t even punished for it.  We’re free to take our books on sale, monetize and get paid, and to work as hard as we want for what we want.

This is not a post about writing, so we’ll leave it at that, but I’ll note there is a reason many of my colleagues are terrified of this development.  They lash out at indie writers, they lash out at anyone suggesting indie writing is an alternative, and they always lash out at Amazon who made all this possible.

That is because freedom is terrifying.

The Bible, which, whatever else it is, is a repository of impressively old traditions and narratives and very accurate on the nature of the walking upright hairless monkeys, says that the Israelites, in the desert, longed to be back in slavery.

I know a lot of my colleagues long for the fleshpots of NY publishing, chains and all.  I also know that after the wall fell the Eastern countries got a number of “backlash communists.”  And I know a lot of people go back to bad marriages of (practical) servitude, rather than walk away.  And that humanity as a whole seems to be trying to crawl back into a caste system in which 90% of the people have no freedom and 100% of the people aren’t as free as we are.

A Libertarian friend of mine thinks this is because people like being slaves; they like servitude.

He is wrong.  It’s not that people love being slaves.  It’s that freedom is scary, because if you’re free you can fail AND YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME.

It’s no coincidence that America, arguably the freest country in the world, when it comes to pursuing the avocation you want to pursue and being successful (or not) is also the birth place of SJWs and Micro aggressions.  It’s no coincidence that it’s in America, a country that prizes women so much it’s almost a matriarchy, that women keep insisting they live in a patriarchy and are grossly oppressed.  (All without realizing how much more oppressive even other western countries are. Let alone places where your genitals will be mutilated for the crime of being a girl.)

These things are done, and eternal oppression forever claimed, because humans don’t want to be slaves.  Oh, no.  They want to be free.  Completely free to do whatever they want.  They also want someone to blame as they fail.

A few people have even managed to get themselves into that position, but if you’re not the son in law of someone relatively rich and important, it ain’t gonna happen.

You’re going to have to take your freedom, your failure, and your guilt about your failure, as one single deal.  This is called being an adult.

At one time there used to be much psycho-babble about fear of success.  Frankly I thought — and still think — this is bullsh*t.  Everyone I know who claims a fear of success aren’t terrified of being acclaimed, rich and famous.  No, what they fear is that they’ll succeed just enough for everyone to realize how they failed.  Say, they’ll have a bestselling book, but the websphere will be on fire with word of their horrendous typos, or their ignorance of chemistry or something.

Because success has downfalls.  And being allowed to succeed comes with fear you won’t.  Or that your success will be imperfect, and everyone will make fun of you, or–

Yes, sure, you can try to blame the cat for your failure (my son at five blamed the cat for removing the muffins from the oven and eating one, so why not?)  And you can try to crawl back into a situation where you have an excuse for your failure.

But barring the son in law thing, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.   And no one is REALLY going to believe you’re oppressed for you gender/looks/race in the US today.  Maybe a little picked on, sometimes, for a few people, but not OPPRESSED to the point you can’s succeed.

Adulting sucks.  But it is what you must be, if  you want to have your freedom and eat it too.

Shut up about it, take the bitter with the sweet, shoulder the awesome burden of your freedom and carry on.

57 thoughts on “The Slicing Edge of Freedom a Blast from the Past from May 24, 2017”

      1. Then the door would be off the oven and the racks hanging from the cat tree.

        And all the muffins would be gone. The Feline Liberation Front strikes!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. Was about to note that. It is not impossible for a cat to open an oven door – I’ve had it happen to me. (Didn’t snitch any muffins, though.)

        As for fear of success, well, not really. Ideally, though, I would much prefer to be rich and thoroughly anonymous. More fun that way.

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        1. “much prefer to be rich and thoroughly anonymous. More fun that way.”

          ………….

          Same.

          Being famous, let alone infamous, are not on my wish list.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. I hate notoriety. Which I sort of have. I much prefer cash. Which I don’t got much of.
              Ah well, this wedding shall pass, and we’ll stop bleeding money. (Trips overseas are expensive.)

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  2. Since being an adult is hard, some people want “Mommy Government” to take care of them.

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    2. Over on the book of faces, there’s this really DEVOUT D-badged organism that I follow. He uses a pseudonym that’s probably copyrighted, but FB doesn’t care.

      I follow the buggardly critter because he HAS run for office in 2020 (lost the primary) and may try again.

      Anyway, with that background, you should be unsurprised that he once posted about the “Mommy State” not being a bad thing. “Because don’t MOST moms want their children to do well?” [paraphrased]

      What a fatuous creep.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. ” “Because don’t MOST moms want their children to do well?” [paraphrased]”

        …………

        The problem is a good mother is willing to let their children grow into productive healthy self directing adults, able to make their own mistakes and recover from, ready and willing to mentor their own offspring.

        The “nanny state” does not want that. They want everyone under them to be directionless slaves, that they, and they alone, think for and manipulate.

        Needless to say. I call BS.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. You’re right, of course. And he deliberately ignored the very existence of abusive mothers, which as far as I can tell is ALL government that aspires to the nanny mode.

          Liked by 1 person

  3. I blame my 70 lb dog for my busted knee because she acts like a cat and trys to weave through my legs when I walk in the house. She blames the 14 lb cat for teaching her that trick.

    Always the cat’s fault.

    People want to be told what to do. They want to be part of the gang. They gladly crab bucket anyone that strays from “Must See TV”. They will bully those that standout. They can’t handle the truth, because it will set you free.

    Every doctor/specialist I’ve seen clams up tighter than than baling wire caught in a mower if you mention anything off script about the Great Plandemic or even actual healthy diets instead of pills. They would rather kill patients than lose their license. Slaves to the system and Big Pharma.

    As far as success, did you ever wonder how certain singers, actors and others in the performance world become very successful and others didn’t? Talent is a small part of it. They sold their souls and become rich slaves. Only had to take it in the ass or mouth or do something much worse to become part of that tribe. Not rumors anymore. But their “success” makes them fearful, so they toe the line and stay quiet about their initiation.

    Never their fault, they did what they had to do.

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    1. Nowadays, the rage in the medical fields is all about “”best practice”, as designated by the “experts” at the NIH, CDC, their Medicare-Medicaid minions, and the gatekeepers of payment, the insurance companies. Heaven help any doctor who tries to actually tailor a treatment for any patient.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Ah, yes, the days of “the tsunami of swill” and “gatekeepers to ensure quality.” And they didn’t realize that the walls on one side of the gate had been undermined and collapsed, and people were gleefully storming the breach with books, and ideas, and stories, and cool stuff, and what have you.

    2020 sorted out a lot of things, and the ensuing waves of revelations and dropped masks have done even more. There will always be people who want to be told what to do* so they can be a good girl or boy. And those who want to take advantage of that. And the rest of us, who want to be left alone to do our thing and let the market, or our deity, or Fate, or whatever.

    *A blogger who had a very follower personality suggested that there are 10% of people who truly need someone to give them orders and to take charge of things, 10% who are naturally take-charge and good at giving orders and making all decisions, and 80% who are all over the scale. I think she was on to something.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Sturgeon’s Law — 90% of everything is crap.

      So, gatekeepers, to filter out 90% of the ‘tsunami of swill’.

      When they’re done, you find that the gatekeeper-curated material is…90% crap. Only now it’s carefully selected crap. And 10% of what they rejected is not crap, it’s just Wrongthink.

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      1. Therefore, 90% of gatekeepers are crap. Seems accurate to me.

        Pet peeve: Calling something a law when clearly it’s an axiom. Laws are either legally enforceable or scientifically defined. (90% of pet peeves are crap, too; draw your own conclusions about this one.)

        Liked by 1 person

      1. This is wise.

        For myself, I definitely am not a leader; don’t have the temperament for it. My more natural role is being a mind-my-own-business git’er-done guy. At best, my leadership potential might rise to reliable right-hand man (I have been that in a couple of jobs; if I’m tooting my own horn, I might even say I rose to the level of kick-ass right-hand man at least once).

        I used to imagine that I was some kind of leader or rebel because that’d be cool…but the fact is, I’m neither. I realized a long time ago that my natural inclination is to follow the rules — but I’m also a thinker. The rules have to make *sense*. If the rules and procedures are working and the leaders are doing a reasonable job, I’m usually content to follow along and do my part. But I’ve also been the guy who speaks up and says things like, “Wait a minute…what is the point of this?”

        So I’m a follower who doesn’t want to just be told what to do. I want to KNOW what to do, why I’m doing it, and that it’s leading toward a good end.

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        1. I have excellent minion skilz. I follow through, work hard, and can figure out how to accomplish an assigned task with minimal oversight. I don’t require constant affirmation or massive amounts of “self care”. I’m cheap and easy to feed and clothe too.

          The main problem for an excellent minion is finding someone who is worthy of such a minion.

          Luckily for my hubby, he fits the bill.

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        2. “For myself, I definitely am not a leader; don’t have the temperament for
          it. My more natural role is being a mind-my-own-business git’er-done
          guy. At best, my leadership potential might rise to reliable right-hand
          man”

          ……………

          Same. Well, female version. Put me in the spotlight as the leader and I freeze. It is not me. Not so much the right hand, but mentor. Give me a specific task, no matter how complicated, how much I have to learn, it’ll get done. I’ll ask for help. I’ll direct. But no way am I the “leader”. One of the two reasons I never followed through on any of my own software projects. When the company I worked for sold out on everyone, one major group wanted me to head up taking the major software forward as planned. Two problems with that. While all the transitional new stuff was mostly my code, I did not own it. Second, “head up”. Nope. Nope. Was not, and did not, happen. (Was the software eventually developed? Yes. Under the control of one, if not both, the companies that purchased the company assets.) The other reason I never went out on my own … I hate, despise, sales; i.e. looking for work.

          “imagine that I was some kind of leader or rebel because that’d be
          cool…but the fact is, I’m neither. I realized a long time ago that my
          natural inclination is to follow the rules — but I’m also a thinker. The rules have to make *sense*.”

          ……………

          Exactly. My tendency is to legally work around procedures and rules, very, very, quietly. If I can’t do that, oh, I comply. I think it is called “malicious compliance” taken to extreme; also very quietly. Do not put the focus on me. I do not want it.

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        3. As one of my characters puts it:

          “See, this is why I liked being an employee. Somebody else dealt with accounting, sales, taxes, insurance, and all these asinine government regulations. I got to concentrate on what I do — designing the widgets, testing the prototypes, and making them do what they’re supposed to do. Embedded programming. Helping production out when they had problems. Building testers and the like. Now? I spend most of my time on useless bureaucratic bullshit. I hate ‘being my own boss’!”

          Liked by 1 person

  5. Freedom is hard work, and that work is personal and never ends. You cannot slack and keep it.

    Slavery is for Slackers. How little can you get away with, and avoid the lash.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. The same R.U.D. as for rockets, except for subs the D stands for “descent” rather than “disassembly”.

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  7. A good measure of how much freedom you have is how greatly are you allowed to fail. If there’s a government safety net for everything then you’re bound by silken chains and soma.

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        1. There was an old lady

          Who swallowed a fly.

          I don’t know why

          She swallowed a fly.

          Perhaps she’ll die.

          A sing along might raise our spirits.

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  9. This seems to tie in to the thought that most people are followers. There’s the old 20/80 rule – 80% of progress comes from 20% of the people, etc. And revolutions come from a small % of the population – in America or Russia. Was it this way when we were all hunter/gatherers? Probably there were the best hunters and leaders, but I’m guessing somehow more participated in keeping the tribe alive. Perhaps we’ve lost something over the millennia?

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    1. My Miz Kitty will gleefully run down, savagely tackle, and repeatedly try to rear-leg-kick eviscerate a rolled tennis ball.

      Her stuffed rat didn’t last long.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. I think President Eisenhower accurately described the campaign against Harris-Walz and their ilk accurately 63 years ago: “We face a hostile ideology-global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration.”

    Liked by 1 person

  12. Kackling Kamela has been droning on about what a great job she’s done, and what a great job she’s going to do on the border, for about the last 20 minutes. Blaming all the problems they caused on Trump, of course.

    How can anybody spend that much time and that many words to say NOTHING?!

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Wasn’t that a plot point in one of the Foundation novels, with an ambassador’s words being analyzed to determine they were semantically null?

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