We’re in a heck of a time. Our communications are thoroughly broken.

When I talk of what’s going on with the student loans, a lot of you think I’m being immoral for saying they shouldn’t be paid back. There’s been a ton of nonsense about “on the backs of the middle class” but none of that is remotely true. There’s a lot of things you’re assuming that have no basis in reality. They would, of course, if reality were even vaguely logical and if our system weren’t error piled on folly piled on sheer insanity.

I’m working on a post for Monday, this supposing I get Sunday to work on it, of course, but while working on it, I myself found how many of my assumptions of what’s going on there are wrong. (And not in favor of “make them pay” or “if they don’t the middle class does” to be clear. There is literally nonsense going on supporting Obamacare in the middle of all that. We should never underestimate the ability of the left to self-serve while creating even more slaves to the state, right?) Which is why that post will take longer. (And again, I want to point out that this is not in favor of Biden’s plan. That’s at best cosmetic. It’s not even putting a bandaid on it. It’s putting a bow on a bleeding wound, and with that buying the loyalty and the votes of the stupid young who think if they keep voting left, one day they’ll be free.)

This is not the place for that discussion. This is just an example. You get to yell at me on Monday, when that post goes up.

But the main point of this post is this: We’re a lot of us trapped in vicious systems/places from which we can’t escape except by quitting, but unable or unwilling to communicate what is going on.

In the case of people on the right trapped in student loans that make no sense, it’s shame. “Well, I was stupid, and I signed that contract, so it’s all my fault and I should suffer.” So they don’t even correct the misconceptions when they see it. But it’s not just that. People in professions where they have to hide their politics don’t want to talk about the mess in their professions, because it might be traced to them.

In its simplest form, for years I didn’t complain about my writing “career” to the point that I lied to fans of a book series when it was cancelled and told them I’d “lost interest” or wanted to do something else now. What was I going to do, really? Tell them I didn’t sell very well. Or that I sold so badly that the publisher made me change? But then the publisher will get letters and get p*ssed because I talked about it.

I once found myself with three other “right wing” authors (the others not SF) and we were having dinner, and one of us — might have been me. I honestly don’t remember — let it slip how low our advances and royalties were. And then the others shared theirs, and we were all about the same. And it was both horrifying and very freeing. For that moment, I wasn’t crushed in shame of how I was failing. All of us were. And I knew the other people were good. In fact, we had become friends because I was a fan.

Or, you know, my statements were so horrifyingly low that I was afraid to give them to my lawyer, so he could draft a letter asking for reversal. Ironically, he was the one who looked at them and told me they weren’t low, so much as they were absolutely impossible: the same exact number, down to the single digit, for books that were out the same time, even in different fields/publishers. (Weirdly? Not dishonesty so much as a formula. As I explained, publishers don’t have any idea how much each individual title sells. Yes, it can be figured out, but it would take a lot of work/trained accountants, which most publishers probably can’t afford at this point. Maybe. I know even electronically, it took my husband years of perfecting a program to do it. And he can’t sell the program, because enough things change every period, that he has to use it/adjust it. He does this for pay for a medium publishing company and it takes a bizarre amount of time and work. He gave a workshop at Liberty Con (And he’s willing to talk to anyone wanting to know more about this, but no, he’s not taking any more clients.) So publisher’s have a formula. If you’re a mid-list author, take your initial lay down and divide by the number of years it’s been out, or something like.) So, you know, I was embarrassed into silence by numbers that aren’t even real.

This is going on with a lot of us. Particularly those of us who know we’re “smart” and “competent” and yet our results don’t seem to support it. We know what the problem is. Or at least we think we do. But what if we’re just using this as an excuse.

Such a silence is particularly effective against the right, because we have a “do or die” ethic, and most of us were raised with “no excuses. Just do.” So when we keep failing again and again and again, we might know that what’s causing it is beyond our control, but that sounds too much like whining.

This is not even just in professions. There are any number of “romantic age” males and females on our side, desperate to form a family or at least a relationship, who have no clue how to find someone else, and are afraid to confess how little they’ve dated/how unsuccessfully. And all the structures existing are not “leading to marriage.”

Actually this is a good example for the problems with communication and knowledge in society, because the captured means of narrative — both ficiton and non fiction — have been thoroughly captured by a left who doesn’t want to know the truth, but to sell their view of how the world should be as truth, adding to the confusion.

So, males, isolated in their loneliness, unable to figure out how to even reach out — complicated by the fact that in professional situations both men and women not of the left often have to at least keep quiet, and often outright pretend to be on the other side — think that women are all as portrayed in the leftist media, so they’re into the hookup culture, or they only want rich men, or never want children, or whatever.

Meanwhile, the women trapped in same, think all men just want sex, have no interest in a relationship/marriage and all the rest.

And each of them, too scared or unable to talk about it, assumes that everyone else who is happily married have taken everyone who is like them. And everyone else is having wild sex all the time.

This is not helped by the propagation of “Surveys” whose internals are often bizarrely corrupt, but that’s not what’s shown.

And so, isolated, each person thinks they’re uniquely failing, and everyone is against them, and that they’re the only ones. Which leads either to despair or maladaptive “solutions.”

It’s pretty much like this, everywhere.

And if you think that is by design from the left you’d be ALMOST right.

They’re not doing this to silence you. They’re not doing this to shape you. They’re not doing this to enslave you. Those are happy bonuses.

No, the problem is that the left QUITE LITERALLY believes that “narrative shapes the world.”

I’m not making this up, difficult as it is to believe, but yes, they SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK believe that if you don’t have a counter narrative, and that if everyone believes the narrative, then it is true.

Part of this are half-baked New Age Philosophies, rooted in affirmations and the like. Part are fundamental misunderstandings of quantum (and science in general.) Part …. insanity?

I confess the phenomenon scares me and it took me forever to accept they do indeed believe this. It’s at a the root of their war on “disinformation” and their war on opposing speech in general.

If we all clap for Tinker Bell Communism, it will be real.

And of course, it’s not true. All the imposed narrative does is add bad information to lack of information, and means that all the solutions are increasingly corrupted, leading to — eventually — the whole system collapsing.

It doesn’t prevent the system collapsing — USSR, for ex — what it does is prevent the implementation of useful or effective solutions.

You can believe you’ve produced ten tons of steel. It won’t cause steel to appear. What it causes is trials of the saboteurs who stole the steel. Because a scapegoat must exist, or else you’ll get punished.

This is what we’re living with right now.

And the only possible solution is almost impossible: We need to start talking.

No matter how embarrassing it is. No matter how much we feel it’s really our fault and we’re just making excuses. We need to talk. I’m open to stories. I can anonymize them.

We need to know what’s going on in all these little fiefdoms where the leftist stupidity has bound everyone in darkness and silence.

We need to know who is not being stupid, but struggling against impossible odds. Who has to go along, to literally keep body and soul together.

We are all making a lot of assumptions about groups and professions and situations that aren’t ours. And because our only news and even our mass entertainment that shape our images of each other are in the hands of the left and even our personal sharing in places like Facebook is tampered with, our assumptions are often completely wrong.

The messages are flying but the network is down.

It’s time to rebuild the network. What do people say about you/your situation that’s completely wrong and burns you up? If it has a basis in regulation/law/structure we need to know.

Let’s talk.

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.

Other than Viva La Vida by cold play, I’ve recently been captured by “symptom of being human” by Shinedown.

I could write an entire post about how that song, unintentionally hooks in to various parts of my history, but this, right here:

I’ve never been the favorite, thought I’d seen it all
‘Til I got my invitation to the lunatic ball
And my friends are coming too
How ’bout you?

Dan and I were singing in the car on our last drive to see the older kids (Son and DIL) and on those lines, we looked at each other with a rueful half smile.

Because what have the last three years been, but an invitation to the lunatic ball? Bob the Registered, a regular here, who used to be a froll and is now disturbingly sane (When the world gets weird, the weird go pro, I guess.) says no American is quite sane right now. We’re all deeply wounded, and hanging out at the edges of sanity — and to the edges of sanity — by our fingertips.

I suppose there would have been some advantage to not ever having fit in with any group of opinion. To being considered crazy by “normal” people.

That was never where I was. Oh, I was considered crazy by most of my field when I came out of the political closet, but that’s because in my field, at least those who share their political opinions, Obama was a right winger, and frankly Stalin was a moderate right winger. In that landscape, anyone who came out and denied they believed in Holy Marx was insane. Because of course I’m imagining things, and Marx isn’t everywhere, and no one does Marxian literary analysis. And also, it’s the most useful thing ever, Marx is all true and was a genius economist and a prophet of our times, and I obviously understand nothing if I think he was wrong and crazy and had the economic intuition of a small rock. (Apologies to ALL rocks.)

But in general, in the normal landscape of the world, I knew I was a little more aware of politics than the average bear, and I hung my hate at (small l) libertarian, or if you prefer Constitutionalist Minarchist. Or if you prefer “will vote Republican under protest, because I really hate commies, but most Republicans are too statist for me.

Oh, I still hang out there, philosophically. I’m just not sure if anyone is hanging with me, or if I’m hanging separately.

In the last three years, alliances have shifted. I’m now forced to read Glen Greenwald seriously, even when I disagree with him. And that, btw, is the least surprising of the people I find myself agreeing with. There is considerably worse. I’m not even going to go into who suddenly makes sense and makes me go “arrooo?”

At the same time people I thought were sane and made sense… well, it’s more than three years right? A lot of them went insane with Trump’s election and suddenly think that we actually and for real elected a communist with 81 million votes, and that his being corrupted and sold out to China is fine.

They’re willing to see the country destroyed, as long as Trump doesn’t get another turn at the presidency because…. because…. because …. I don’t know. He eats steaks with ketchup. And he talks with a bad accent. And he doesn’t agree to the polite fiction that both sides are the same and the left are just misguided idealists.

Meanwhile…. the rest of us….

We’re still in shock they locked us down. We’re not, outside the deep blue enclaves, in shock that everyone went along with it, because outside the deep blue enclaves no one really went along with it fully. Except the very left, very old and very stupid, which were often the exact same person.

But we’re in shock they locked us down and even more in shock that — it was obvious — they thought they could keep it up forever. It was “the new normal.”

I mean we knew they were evil and stupid, but can anyone be THAT evil AND stupid?

And then … well, it’s not gotten better since then. The hits keep coming. The massively frauded election. The fact that every time we dig into any system — yes, there will be a post about student loans. I’m waiting for an insert from someone who saw this mess from another angle. Yes, you can disagree with me. But most of you aren’t seeing the whole thing, and the horrific down-system effects, which frankly even loan forgiveness can’t fix (though it can mitigate. And maybe that will be enough for the rest to unravel. I confess this is more a hope than a certainty.) — ANY SYSTEM it’s a morass of evil being done for evil reasons and for the purpose of enslaving humans to the diktats of an increasingly crazier and out of touch government.

We’re reeling from crazy to crazy, and further continuously shocked by the news we see and by…. how do we put this? How fast the most ridiculous and scandalous of them disappear.

No, I’m not talking about the Biden-scandal-dense-pack with everyone around them protecting them.

I’m talking about crazy sh*t that you read about and I read about, and then we forget, because there’s so much crazy and none of it makes any sense.

Remember the guy who blew himself up in an RV in downtown somewhere Christmas day 2 and a half years ago? What was with that?

There were enough red flags there for a May Day parade. There never was a resolution or any sense made of it. It just kind of sank out of the public consciousness.

What about all the mass shootings, which, this time for sure, are a White Supremacist attacking them poor people of color, and then when it’s revealed otherwise, they just disappear. Are never heard of or mentioned again.

What about that guy with the U-haul that apparently contained nothing but a confederate flag in chains (?!) who supposedly drove into the white house fence, but really was in a park across the street? The guy was, if I remember, a Pakistani exchange student. And the flag was carefully posed on the ground for pictures, in another “white supremacist attack”

And then it disappeared…..

Look, I come from a time where we knew the news lied, but if you studied them, you could sort of infer the truth of what was really going on. They weren’t…. or we thought they weren’t, made up out of whole cloth. Now…

This is the bad thing, you know, you look back, and suddenly you’re not sure. The entire landscape of your life is altered, and you start wondering if you’ve been a victim of a propaganda operation since birth, and one that doesn’t even make any sense. Unless…. And suddenly here come the strange bedfellows.

Like when this started I was willing to say all anti-vaxers were crazy, and vaccines were perfectly safe. But I saw how they pushed the covid-shot, one with almost completely unproven benefits and hidden risks, while denying natural immunity to do it. And now… I still think most vaccines are safe. If I ever — heaven forbid because the situation would almost always be bad — have the raising of an infant, I’ll still have him/her vaccinated. But I might look more closely at the timing and the vaccines, because well, they’re now requiring covid-vax for school, which is mental. So I can no longer assume good faith.

And while I still think Robert Kennedy Jr is insane (like most of his family) and most of his opposition to vaccines is insane, it’s hard to regain the certainty I had, when I know he’s telling the truth about Covid-19.

See, I used to be fairly sure I knew what was going on. All those conspiracy theorists on the right? “They’re going to put us in camps!” (I still think they’re crazy, but due to logistics, not for lack of crying.) and the ones on the left “Wars are a conspiracy of the army and the industrialists. They’re not necessary. They’re designed to kill the young so they keep power.” Obviously just insane peacenick, nonsense, right?

Um…. our government locked all of us under house arrest. Or tried to. And thought it could keep it up forever. AND the army-industrial complex tried to keep wars going/restart them when the upstart business man would end them. If it’s not to kill young males, you could have fooled me.

And while their grand designs of replacing the population won’t work (there aren’t enough people willing to come in, for various reasons. At most we all become a little less American, which can be recovered from) it’s not for lack of trying.

And the FBI? Really? not just “somewhat corrupt?”

And the news, all of them, completely detached from reality now?

I’m like a woman who wakes in the night, puts her foot down on the familiar rug, and suddenly rug and floor move under it.

I wander around trying to figure out what’s going on from…. what’s on sale and what’s missing at the grocery store. What is expensive and what’s cheap at craigslist and facebook marketplace. The experiences of friends and contacts.

Because no other form of information can be trusted. And maybe it was all lying all of my life.

Some realities remain. Communism is bad and can’t work. Not because the news say so (they don’t) but because it makes no sense for humans.

The future will be shaped by those who have kids.

And the larger the government the larger the corruption.

All the rest writhes and changes, and I spend a considerable portion of my time trying to figure out what’s real and what’s a distorted reflection.

Here, in the lunatic ball.

YOU EXPECT TO BE PAID FOR THIS?!?!?! by Foxfier

I’m fairly sure we’re all familiar with the drumbeat of how newspapers are dying. It’s so expensive to print, people just aren’t buying, the websites are a sunk cost that never pays back on advertising no matter how obnoxious they make the ads or how difficult they make it to see a story without paying ahead of time….

What they generally do not point out is that the reason people aren’t buying the news papers is that they decided to cut costs by not doing any reporting.
Now, I really shouldn’t pick on newspapers exclusively. They are the most famous, but at this point probably not even the most common. This same issue shows up in information websites and even some blogs, although blogs are more likely to tell you where they got their information from, even if they don’t actually link it and might get the name wrong. Newspapers, you’re lucky to get a name that you can trace back and figure out that they are the spokesman–or sometimes one man founder, operator, and primary beneficiary of spending– for RELEVANT ACTIVIST GROUP, LLC, and the half-quoted statement is on their website.

My grandmother was a reporter, and my parents are down right obnoxious, so I always got told to go dig for the rest of the story. Or that if you couldn’t make an argument against a position, you were too ignorant to make an argument for it.

That, incidentally, is quite true. It is a variation on the observation made famous in Chesterton’s Fence, that if you cannot explain why a gate is there, you should not remove it.

Now, looking for cures to this– try to track down the source of a story. Figure out if your news is doing its job.

Sometimes this is relatively easy.

Say, banned books, including the “banning” of Maus. The Professor handled the specific banned book display in her article, so I’ll explain what I did with Maus.

You saw the story, probably, or at least the story about it being “international news” that “Tennessee” had “banned Maus.”

That sounded improbable, so I went digging…couldn’t find anything about what had actually been done.

Eventually went looking for what school or city had done so, which led me to the actual minutes of the schoolboard meeting, as well as some comments by parents in various local publications. Those told me the problems were switching contracted curriculum providers, a large jump in cost, that Maus was neither great material for 13 year olds (duh, it’s aimed at adults, that was the selling point) nor suitable as the sole document for teaching about WWII, and parents were upset because it violated the recent law that they got to see the curriculum.

Anyone reading here surprised to hear that the overview was heavy on fiction, and big-name publishers? Kind of thing that makes me wish we had some reporters to go actually report on why the curriculum was changed, and how the new one was selected, and how they plan to deal with that liiiiittttle bitty legal issue…..

So, that’s one that bites the left– how about one on reporting that bites the right?

We’re all familiar with the Adderall shortage, right?

Well, a trusted online magazine stated that the shortage was due to the FDA limiting the production of Adderall. (In spite of their links all being internal, they do generally have useful information.)

Cue the obvious grumbling about is there anything they can’t screw up.

That sent me looking for a primary source for the claim, which ended up at Reason Magazine, which claimed that their source for the FDA/DEA limiting the production of Adderall to meet demand was supported by a link. That link went to the Federal Register, specifically the one for dealing with precursors for manufacturing drugs. Seeing that, and knowing something about how “a bureaucrat did it” is extreme shorthand, figured that only activists had commented on the document and had pushed through a stupid reduction. Following the rules, example of folks failing to use the tools we have to leash the Feds, etc.

I was wrong.
Not about someone not doing their job, but about who isn’t doing their job.

The document records that the folks worried about not being able to get their Adderall type medication went and commented during the comment period, yadda yadda, the DEA took their comments (short version: WE CANNOT GET OUR MEDICATION, FIX IT) and went to talk to the manufacturers.

To quote:

The majority of the manufacturers contacted by DEA and/or FDA have responded that they currently have sufficient quota to meet their contracted production quantities for legitimate patient medical needs. According to DEA’s data, manufacturers have not fully utilized the APQ for amphetamine in support of domestic manufacturing, reserve stocks, and export requirements for the past three calendar years 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In English, the last three years they haven’t used the amount that was made.
In spite of that, they did nothing to the amount made…which is oddly sane, considering government.

Well, that makes for the obvious question: are these manufacturers stupid? Do they not like money? Why isn’t the drug being made?

Turns out the University of Utah has a site for that, ASHP dot org slash DRUG SHORTAGES.

They have a current page for the Adderall type drugs, which has a Reason Why section.

As of the time I clicked on that link, most of the manufacturers “did not provide a reason.” Mallincrodt “refuses to provide availability information”. A few were only filling contracts, a few had stopped making the drug that was under shortage, Sandoz was prioritizing filling existing orders and Tris Pharma had tablets and suspensions available.

Searching for company names got me one “we’re working to meet demand” and a bunch of “manufacturing delays,” and one I found a third party news story I’ve now lost that said they literally couldn’t get the stuff to package their drugs. Several more are “reorganizing” to deal with worker shortages.

So, the problem wasn’t “the FDA reduced how much precursor they were allowed to make, a year or two after shortages started.” It was, the manufacturers not making enough.
(Which can very easily roll into getting manufacturing back state side, and trying to identify if there’s specific problems there we can fix, but will absolutely not be improved by getting mad at the people who did not reduce the amount that has already not been used, and sadly has very little chance of getting used barring a miracle of manufacturing managing to burn through three years of backlogged extra and the reserve stocks for this year.)

Well, people not doing the job and wanting to be paid as if they did has branched out from reporting to manufacturing. How about something closer to home?

SHOP LOCAL!

Really, who doesn’t love ma’n’pop shops, which we all know are dying off because evil department stores uh walmart uh amazon uh… you get the idea.

Don’t we read it in the news all the time?

…well… what happens when you ask someone why they didn’t shop locally?

As it happens, I have someone to ask right here!

Foxfier! Why don’t you shop locally?

Well, I try.

There was a local “Five and Dime,” which of course was more expensive than even the mall in town but was right here, so I worked to make a family ritual of taking each kid to the store and they got to choose one cool thing on their birthday. With a half dozen kids, this was a pretty big investment.
Then kung flu happened, and they not only required masks, they banned children. While their 14 year old relative ran the register.
After things reopened, they kept masks, until about a year and change after everyone else had moved on, they had a big GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sale. At which point they had weekly five-ten percent jumps in the discount…and if you kept your eye on some items, you noticed that the price tag on them went up 10-15% with each discount jump.

K, well, that’s just one. How about the hardware store?
They’re actually really good, price on lumber is quite reasonable even if you’re not a builder with a discount, although we bought out their entire stock of spare keys for our primary vehicle. I got two made. It’s one of the most common key varieties in the area.

Maybe mechanics?
The small engine guy that can do stuff is booked, and the one that is at the auto parts store can’t find a part when you bring a print-out with the specific part on it. And if you bring it in, they’ll probably charge you as if they ordered the part. Although they refund if you ask with enough force.
The one automotive shop we found that claimed they could work on our vehicle…well, short version, heater still didn’t work and after them neither did the vent. The oil shop chain that was good to us when we first moved here and had an emergency identified that the AC controller module was halfway burnt out. They fixed it in three hours. Apparently the guys who specialized in vehicles like ours couldn’t figure that out, in a few weeks.

Home repairs! There’s something that’s obvious.
Well… we needed a shutoff valve. Because the water department declared that the one that was there was not their responsibility, but we needed to actually have a whole-house shutoff.
I got two disconnected numbers, one private number, three answering machines and one call back two weeks after I’d given up, called a regional chain, and they went “Well…technically you’re outside of our range. But I know that we have a plumber that lives in your town, and he takes his truck home with him every night, are you open to an on-call with him?” and put in the shutoff.

Do I know anybody who does their job?
Well, a few, yes.
My mom’s sister and her husband ran a paint and photography shop, and for years their place was kept in the black because they had an Amazon account.
The little old ladies, and the folks who wanted to order Amazon but didn’t want to have it possibly misdelivered, went to them– she’d order it, charge them an appropriate amount, and go along merrily.
A few farm supply stores that also try to make it easy to give them money. “No, we can’t get that, but let me be a subject expert and see about ordering it.”

Heck, the thing I like best about our state is that the traffic cops actually do their job— and so folks know that turn signals, following distance, and rules of the road EXIST!

Over the last several years, I’ve become aware as a society we’re not just devaluing boys. We’re destroying them and making it impossible for them to grow into productive men. Youth unemployment in general is fairly bad, because honestly not only aren’t preparing kids for work, but older people assume even kids who are prepared aren’t.

We’ve swung from a youth culture, of assuming children were always right, to a culture of assuming anyone younger than, well a little older than me, are mentally slow, stupid and lazy.

Perhaps it’s easier to understand that we never really had a youth culture, we had a huge demographic bump of the boomers (post war to oh, around 58 if you count the actual boom) moving through the culture distorting it. And now they are aged, so anyone younger than them is “stupid and lazy.” I and my generation suffered this, but it was less obvious when it was just us being young adults and striving. And society wasn’t as broken as it is now.

I’ve said before, the only thing I really agree with Pope Francis on (Well, I’d also add basic religious tenets except I’m not sure he’d agree with those) is that the biggest problem facing the world is youth unemployment. Most of the young people — and young is now under 40 — I know are either making do with several gigs, working retail, or working several part time jobs, chained up to make do. There are exceptions, of course, but even the well-trained are treated like garbage by the system as is.

And before you say that you too walked up hill both ways in snow at their age. Well, we did too, my husband and I — He worked crazy hours till his mid to late thirties, just to keep his job. I didn’t break in till my late 30s and yep, worked crazy hours for no pay before then — but there is a difference. We were both working at our avocation, and granted I didn’t know if I’d ever “break in” but then again that’s normal (sort of. It was extended because of that demographic bump.) for artists. We were both gaining experience and ability at our professions. It took a little long for us to break in, because of obvious demographic bump. In that our experience was entirely genX.

It’s far worse for the kids, because most of them are not even working at what they trained for. Or if they are, they are working at a level as though they were never trained.

But there is a bigger problem: most boys start being treated as second class citizens around middle school. If you’re older than me, you might think I lost my mind. Heck, if you’re younger than me, and never looked closely at what your kids’ school is doing, or you have no kids, you might think I’m nuts.

Well, I might be nuts but not on this. Starting at about middle school, boys are treated as defective girls. Because women are the majority and treated like a protected minority, every school is afraid of not “treating them fairly” which means giving them primacy. Now just your boy’s behavior as a boy will be punished, but assignments are geared for how girls/women think (which means they also annoy the living daylights of atypical females like myself), they are oriented to group work (which by and large punishes males, though again, atypical females ain’t too happy either), and they’re geared to at least external compliance (which again is a female trait.) Most of the teachers are not just women, but they’re women indoctrinated in a system that tells them that male work is superior and that women are unfairly discriminated against for “being kept out of it.”

If at this point you’re puzzled over my referring to male and female characteristics, and to male work, let’s take the gloves off and speak like adults, instead of the mush most of us have been fed our entire lives.

While we’re rational, thinking creatures, and creatures with our own will power, and therefore can work on a lot of our characteristics and change them: there are differences between men and women. Innate, inborn differences, starting in the uterus with the “hormone baths” that guide development of different sexes. Period.

No real scientist would ever deny that, unless of course he/she feared for his/her job.

… and because we live in retarded times, let me explain that though our bodies and brains are completely different and run on two models, yes, how much that difference manifests is a spectrum. First, because development has glitches. I.e. some people don’t get the right hormones at the right time, and might outright have a brain that leans more the way opposite their body. This is very rare. It is also, btw, not covalent with gender dysphoria. It’s mostly 100% living frustrated by the rest of humanity and assumptions made. But there are other issues. Other types of characteristics might emphasize/mitigate/mimic the way of thinking of the opposite sex. Autistic females tend to think more like males (go figure) and ADHD women might appear to (though it’s not necessarily true.)

Also, like every gendered characteristic, there is a spectrum. Gender doesn’t exist on a spectrum (mostly because it’s a grammatical construct and those are very binary/trienary) but GENDER EXPRESSING CHARACTERISTICS do. Every adult knows tall, hairy men with deep voices, and slight, almost hairless males who are tenors. And every combination thereof. This without regard to maleness/fertility/orientation. And every adult knows vavaboom females that look like they should be painted on the nose of WWII planes, and tall, broad shouldered, practically no hips or breasts females and every combination in between. And these women might or might not be straight/fertile without regard to those combinations.

And yes, all of us know strong women and weak males, though testosterone unreasonably favors males from early development.

Humans are an incredibly complex mechanism, and a doctor friend tells me what’s shocking is not that our bodies go wrong/break in a hundred different ways. The amazing thing is that all of us survive the various potentialities or even actual “going very wrong” every day.

So the platonic ideal of male and female might manifest somewhere in this fallen world, but you’re likely to meet him or her face to face.

Each individual should be judged as an individual, and allowed to purse whatever avocation they wish to take on/are capable of. (And they should perhaps be discouraged from avocations they wish to pursue that are impossible. Though go easy on that, okay? Sometimes what you’re looking at is not someone who is very stupid, but someone who is profoundly depressed. Same with every other characteristic. And I’m sick and tired of people who think it’s a kindness to make writers quite because according to the judge “he/she has no talent.” That’s another post though.) Equality under the law, equality of opportunities should always, always, always be our watchword. Because without it, we’re destroying potentially very productive people, and by extension destroying society/the future.

However, that’s not what we have right now. Right now we have completely crazy people who assume that any difference in characteristics between the sexes is the result of discrimination/past oppression.

And mark me very carefully: while the expression of sexual characteristics exists on a spectrum FOR INDIVIDUALS, in aggregate it is no such thing: in aggregate, there are male characteristics and female characteristics.

This is important because we live in a society that looks at large groups, and if they don’t perform exactly the same, as it says on the envelope, assumes malfeasance or problems somewhere.

At some point someone, probably a doctrinaire feminist, infused with Marxism, looked at how certain professions fell mostly female and some professions were mostly male, and made the usual idiotic Marxist assumption of two classes: oppressor and oppressed.

Males were therefore oppressors, and females were oppressed, and looking at history, which mostly was written by the very well off, they assumed the same had to be true, forever. And by gum, they were going to effect REVOLUTION by turning this on its head. Mostly quietly, by subverting everything they had access too, though this means also changing books, both fiction and non-fiction, shows, news, etc.

We have since then be living under their deranged, poisonous, evil regime. And it’s destroying the future for both males and females: though males are suffering more invisibly (because assumed privileged. which is a Marxist idiocy I can’t begin to believe anyone — anyone — falls for.)

Before someone says physical and mental differences are based on how we treat the sexes, pardon me, biologically that’s completely insane. Yes we are people of brain and will, but we are creatures who live in a body, a body affected by hormones BEFORE WE ARE BORN. As any of us — females — priviledged to experience very different hormonal states from pregnancy to menopause, or any of us — most of us — who’ve gone through puberty know, hormones are SCARY substances, that affect everything from our bodies to how we think. Denying that might be comforting, but is also not reality.

we had someone, well intentioned, but obviously having drunk deeply the koolaid last time I broached this subject who was convinced that the only difference was nutrition and socializing. Besides the fact that her stereotypes were out of date by the seventies, when I grew up — boys were NOT encouraged to “eat hearty”, everyone was encouraged to be sylph thin and starve themselves — the statement is ridiculous on its face.

I’ve been privileged — ah — to look after two coveys of quail recently and for another week. And there’s reasons to believe we misexed males and females, which means we culled a lot of females and have five extraneous males. This was related to the fact that the eggs purchased were not the breed that arrived (I think) and some quail breeds are well night unsexable by PHYSICAL characteristics. What is not unsexable, though, is that males are murderous little maniacs (I now have two in isolation, one recovering from wounds, the other an insane rapist/murderer. (In isolation because they’re not mine, so I don’t have the right of high justice.)) And that females lay. Males also crow, though they might not choose to do it around you. Not any amount of preaching Marx at them will make males live peacefully with other males, and no amount of telling them they should be more like females will make them lay eggs, or be more docile.

Okay, humans are not birds. But our cousins, the great apes show sexed characteristics not just in reproduction, but how they behave in groups. No one expects a male to take the care of the young. No one expects a female to be combative with males. (Yes, it happens. very rarely. But not as an aggregate group.)

Hormones have consequences, not just in bodies but in minds.

Testosterone gifts men with the ability to think more directly, in chained thoughts. Women think more in clusters. We make connections between things men don’t make connections. If you think of male thought as a chain, think of female thought as a spider web.

In general this means that women are better at verbal skills, and men better at mathematical skills (in aggregate. There are female mathematical geniuses, and male mathematical morons. But the gendering shows in large groups.) Women are better in …. “uncertain logic” fields, which involve everything and anything working with people. Men are better at anything involving certain, established logic, and they work better with “things” that can’t reason/exhibit anomalous characteristics more often than “normal” ones. (Again as a group. Individuals are individual.)

Even within the same profession/interest group males and females tend to approach the task differently. Women pushed into “male” fields or even those interested in it, unless they’re incredible outliers, tend to gravitate to management and dealing with people.

Rebel against it all you want. Tell me it’s wrong wrong wrong. But why tell me it’s an “injustice”? What makes being male better than being female, inherently? Nothing. What makes “male professions” like, say, engineering “better” or “more prestigious”?

Absolutely nothing.

Males and females are not superior to each other. Each of them have a set of “specializations” that together allowed us to build civilization.

Countries and cultures that discriminate against one or the other mode of humanity are maimed and thwarted and not quite civilized. And regardless of what you heard from your idiot teachers that by and large has not applied to the West/Christendom since the middle ages. “Women were oppressed, always” is largely bullshit. By our lights until about a hundred years ago, everyone was oppressed: Oppressed by their own biology, by the lack of…. well, everything, and by a hierarchical/unyielding order. Yeah, women had more restrictions on public action than men, and if you consider going to and dying in war better than giving birth and raising kids, you’ll think they were oppressed. The question is of course, why — in the name of BOB — would you consider that superior?

No, women have not been chattel and property in the west for a very long time. Yes, terrible things happened due to evil men and inferior body strength. But terrible things happened to men as well. This doesn’t go one way. If you think it does, you were mistaught, missinformed and indoctrinated.

But you can find places where women were de-facto chattel and treated as property. Various periods of Chinese history for instance (China is always complicated) and a lot of the Middle East. While there were geographical and historical reasons for that, the end result is that those civilizations always fall short.

How could they not? They are running on a single mode of thought, and never allowing half of humanity to make an appropriate contribution, even at the level of teaching the young.

There are no examples of civilizations that treated men poorly. Oh, there probably are, to be honest. We have found hints. But they were destroyed. Partly because you can run maimed in a primitive society that mistreats females, and use superior male strength to beat other tribes. But there is no superior female strength. (Also for bizarre reasons every even intended matriarchy we ever heard of sacrifices babies. We’re no different.)

Until now. Technology allows us to survive while blatantly discriminating against males, starting when male physical characteristics assert themselves (might be earlier, if your teachers are exceptionally well indoctrinated.) But it remains unclear how long we can keep civilization and technology going while doing this. Note please that we’re running aground already on a number of areas. And males around 30 and younger are in a world of pain and most of them have been rendered useless.

I realized, recently, while talking to other mothers, that several problems we faced and overcame, sometimes by the skin of out teeth are not abnormal. They are, in fact, how things are these days.

Boys are not only discouraged from excelling. They are discouraged from excelling at anything traditionally male. Because idiot Marxists think that traditional male avocations are “power.” Remember they only think in oppressor and oppressed, and if someone is more represented somewhere, they’re “oppressors.” (Oh, not everything. Traditional dirty, dangerous occupations are not deemed important for women to take over. Rolls eyes. Because most Marxists are upper class and stupid. That’s why.)

And if they manage their way in, they’ll be discriminated against all the way through University (remember, Marxists are classists too) and through the profession itself. Discriminated against in grades (no one wants to discourage female engineers, which means a lot of colleges give the ladies A. But the Ds have to go somewhere, and after all, they don’t need more male engineers.) Discriminated against in hiring. Discriminated against in promotions.

This was already so when I observed my husband’s career, but it didn’t work. I.e. males and females didn’t completely change places. Men still preferred certain occupations. Women still preferred certain occupations. So, it’s been ramped up to completely and totally insane.

Look, to level set: if you have a son, even a relatively high performing one, chances are he’s working under a level of throttling-down. And most boys are checked out. They no longer care. They’ve been told they’re oppressors and evil by reason of being born male from the moment they were conscious of being male. They no longer care. They no longer want to do anything. Burned out before they even start their lives.

And under it, because they’re males, with testosterone, there’s a level of anger that women will never understand, unless they live surrounded by males and really, really work at understanding. This means that this treatment of boys is creating that much ballyhooed “toxic masculinity” which idiots confuse with “being male.”

Yes, some boys are finding their way into professions the feminists have no interest in, and bless Mike Rowe, whatever his issues, for showing the way to a bunch of males.

But that’s not going to solve our problems as a society in general. Because, sure, we need machinists and HVAC technicians. But we also need engineers who are more fascinated with the “thing” that is the main part of their job, than with office politics. We need researchers who will work hard at figuring the problem, and not spend most of their time figuring out on whom to step to get higher. We need doctors who are gruff and not particularly good at “customer service” but view disease as an enemy to be conquered. (I could go for days about medicine. I’m not going to. But part of our favoring women in medical school is that we are importing most of the people involved in actual day to day doctoring — a dirty, unpalatable position educated women tend to disdain — from countries without the same standards of training. This is one of the idiotic consequences of denying biology in favor of bizarre Marxist social engineering. And not that, yes, I have several female doctors among the regulars. Yes, females can be good and passionate doctors. And several of them are. But those who read here are old enough they were admitted on an equal footing with males. No one was trying to make it 80% female, which is what I’m complaining about. That level of discrimination distorts everything down the line.)

We are INTENTIONALLY blocking males from pursuing their interests and talents, while pushing women to pursue what are traditionally male interests and talents.

This extends from professions to modes of behavior. Women are encouraged to join the hook up culture, with no emotional attachments and behave like BAD and IRRESPONSIBLE men of the 50s (or at least the popular image of those. None of us lived them. Wait. Some of you did. But I didn’t. And those who did as adults are, at this point, a minority.)

The only possible conclusion is that our culture has gone insane and thinks that male modes of work, and male modes of social behavior are VASTLY superior to females. And that females would normally behave like males, unless they were prevented. So, women must have been prevented for MILLENNIA. MILLENNIA. And now, we’re taking revenge for all those oppressed women, by making men behave like women and women like men. Ah. See how they like being oppressed!

Stated like this, openly, it sounds completely insane. It’s like these people are bizarrely misogynistic aliens, who never met a human. Which is largely true. They’re Marxists, for whom every human is a widget, interchangeable with every other human.

Sexual characteristics, both physical and mental, are a spectrum. But in aggregate real differences reveal themselves. By and large male work is more “thing” oriented. Female work is more “Person” oriented. And most male occupations are outdoor and dangerous. Most female occupations are indoor and boring. NEITHER IS SUPERIOR TO THE OTHER. BOTH ARE NEEDED FOR CIVILIZATION.

Both are needed for reproduction, too. Pretending otherwise is having some insane — literally — effects.

But at the root of our society are people so insane that saying “Males and females are different” is a bizarrely transgressive statement. (I got hit on this last time I said it. My courage rises with every attempt to depress it. No, it doesn’t mean I’m transphobic. The few people so body-dysphoric that living under the appearance of the other sex helps them are not a problem with this. The idiots trying to make every kid who isn’t a perfect stereotype believe he/she is the other sex are.)

They are trying to make the roosters lay eggs and the hens crow and think they’re building a more equitable society.

This is destroying both boys and girls, but it is killing boys silently.

Again and again, when I talk to mothers of boys, they think their kid is falling individually. “He just doesn’t want to do anything.” “Nothing interests him.”

Those whose parents make them might be working the bare minimum to survive, with a million roommates. Or in very small lodgings. But they’re not going anywhere. Just stitting there, spinning wheels.

Those in the middle class, are often just wasting their lives on games, and other palliatives.

They are not alone. They are not wrong. They didn’t get broken without a reason. This is the state of the puppy that gets beaten for existing, not just for biting or pooping out of place.

Most of them are scared, isolated, and see no way out.

And many of the guys doing better than that are laboring against the same feeling/the same anger, often self directed.

I’m going to ask you, each and everyone of you, to reach out. Reach out to young people. Yes, a lot of them will respond badly. Don’t reach from a position of patronizing. Reach out as a friend and an equal. Be aware of what they’ve been put through. Meet them where they are. Try to help them find a place where they’re happy and productive.

Treat them as individuals, not as oppressor and oppressed. Tell them it’s all right to be themselves even if who they are is “traditional” expression of their sex.

Snatch brands from the fire. We’re not eating the seed corn. We’re burning it.

We’re not just throwing the future away. We’re destroying it.

And we’re doing it to appease the mysoginistic aliens who think biology is optional and male everything is inherently superior and should be done by females.

Western Civ has become a madhouse with borders. It’s time to reach for sanity.

The life you save might be your own.

Book promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH

UPDATE: Yes, I blew a week of chapters on Chapter House. Now caught up with Witch’s Daughter, will catch up with Winter Prince 4 chapters today, come hell or high water. Then back to normal next week. Sorry. Turns out I’m not able to write and keep livestock happy at same time.

FROM ALENE R. LOWRY: Einarr and the Crimson Shroud: A young adult action-adventure Viking fantasy.

More than a Fortune-Teller’s Art
The corruption from the black-blooded monsters has finally been cleansed from the crew of the Vidofnir, but the events of the last several months have left Einarr with a lot on his mind. Ever since his encounter with the Oracle, time and time again circumstances have conspired to prove her right: he needs to learn to read the runes, or his calling will be the death of him. The problems are going to be convincing his father and finding a teacher.
But the mysterious elf, whose aid allowed him to conquer the Tower of Ravens, knows someone. Several someones, really. But they happen to be guarding an ancient secret. If there’s one thing that a Cursebreaker knows how to find, it’s trouble.

FROM HOLLY CHISM: Gods and Monsters (Modern Gods Book 4)

Here there be dragons…again, damn it.
Deshayna has her sanity back, and forces older than the gods have granted her a new purpose. Chronos, his freedom restored, fights for his sanity, and with it, a purpose in helping Deshayna—now called Shay—with hers. The gods are starting to pull together more…and it’s about time.
Millennia after the last dragons to threaten human existence have been hunted down, they’ve started to reappear, hinting to the surviving gods that something more sinister appeared first: Tiamat.
Instead of a confrontation, though, the gods—major, minor, and genus loci—are drawn into a frustrating hunt for a predator that flees rather than attempting to strike.

WITH JOHN VAN STRY, RODNEY L. SMITH & MORE, FROM OUR FRIENDS AT RACOUNTEUR PRESS: Moggies In Space.

Since the first feline walked into the first human dwelling and decided they liked the staff, Cats have been going where they want and doing what they do. Whether hunting, lounging or deigning to grace their companions with company, cats will continue to do what cats do.

Which is anything they want.

Join these 11 wonderful authors as they explore how and where cats boldly go.

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: A Gift of Koi

Ancient and wise, the grandfather Koi knows at first sight that this human bears a hidden wound. But how can a mere fish, even one as old as himself, be of any aid to a human?

Astronaut Tyler Lanham had come to Grissom City, first and oldest lunar settlement, in search of the medical expertise he couldn’t find on the far side of the Moon. When he sees the scar on the ancient koi’s side, he knows he’s found a kindred spirit.

But an enemy is stalking these lovely gardens. A danger that will change both man and fish.

A short story of the Grissom timeline.

FROM MARY CATELLI: The Witch-Child and the Scarlet Fleet

Caught between pirates who would force him to use wizardry in their aid, and a king who would force him to spy, Alik will need every scrap of wits and wizardry to forge his own path.

FROM M. C. A. HOGARTH: An Exile Aboard Ship

ONE MOMENT QUEEN… THE NEXT, OUTCAST

Surela Silin Asaniefa was convinced she could rule the Eldritch people better than her enemy, Liolesa Galare, and for ten whole days following her coup, she made the attempt—and failed. Resigned to her death as a traitor, she was given a choice by the Queen’s newest protege, Reese Eddings: to be executed, or to accept a commuted sentence and attempt to rebuild her life and make amends for her crimes.

To die would have been the act of a dramatic maiden, and as a woman of more sense and years, Surela chooses instead to see what she can make of herself among aliens and mortals. But what begins with cargo runs on an old Terran freighter soon involves pirates and slavers and intergalactic war… and the actions of a traitor might be the salvation of the people she once wronged.

An Exile Aboard Ship kicks off the redemption arc of the villainess from the Her Instruments series. Can Surela earn her wings in the Alliance? Come and see…

FROM MARY HARE: Cloak and Stola

When the Roman legion sweeps through the farmlands of Syria, Sophie loses everything: her home, her family, even her freedom. Procerus is a soldier subject to the marriage ban recently instituted by Caesar Augustus. But after his legion wins a battle, he may have found a way to start a family anyway.

Procerus is looking for a “wife.” Sophie’s looking for a way forward. Neither are looking for love. But will they find it anyway?

Story of ancient Rome inspired by historical evidence of the de facto marriages of Roman legion soldiers.

Novella, approximately 18,000 words.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: SHAKE

Recently we were talking about what we would have done if we’d known what was ahead.

By and large we’re okay, and the kids turned out okay, but I have great remorse that I tried to write when they were small, and often prioritized writing over spending time with them. This rather ignores the fact that I’m more neurotic than a shaved cat and would probably have driven them insane(r) if they were my 24/7 job.

But anyway, I said something like “I would not have spent my time beating my head against trad pub, and writing a lot of things I felt no push to write, but were demanded by the houses/I knew they’d be accepted. I’d just wait till Indy came on, and write for the drawer till then.”

I realized almost immediately after I said it that yeah, it sounds lovely, but short of sending my mind back in time, with everything I’ve learned on the “wrong path” I probably wouldn’t be the same writer, and I wouldn’t be better either. I’d never have learned what was actually wrong with the things I first wrote, and why they didn’t sell (Yes, some of it was left weirdness turning them down, but not all. I had no clue how to foreshadow for instance, or how to assign different weights to plot elements.) I’d never have learned to write fiction that appealed to others, because I wouldn’t be forced to. If I were writing only for me, I’d have no idea how to make a negotiation between what I like and what’s likely to appeal to most readers (not content, but presentation, mostly.) I’d not know that sometimes the books you were forced to write (Dyce) can be the most fun to you and others, if you claim the theme pushed at you and make it fun.

I’d be a much less flexible and practiced writer. Not to mention that not having the practice of butt-in-chair and writing, I’d probably have 200 unfinished novels, and no clue how to finish anything, let alone anything anyone else wanted to read. (And I’d never have learned to write short stories.)

So, the wrong path might very well have been the right training. If I can get my aquatic birds in a row and write like I mean it now, that it.

What brought this on? Oh, this:

As someone in the group where this was posted pointed out, other than the title, these could be self-care affirmations. Because, sure, we all need to remember sometimes we need to step back, take a deep breath, and not chase the red dot all the time.

BTW these would be more likely be called “anti-communist affirmations” because in a communist regime, no one has time to create or produce what they want to, monetized or not, so this is irrelevant. In communism, you pretend to work and they pretend to pay you, and just chasing down the necessary food in stores takes all your time.

But leaving that alone, look, of course you’re allowed to create what you feel you need to, even if it’s not beautiful. Why wouldn’t you be? The corollary is that people are allowed to spit on it, and hate it, even if it IS beautiful. So what?

And what the heck does it even mean for a form of work to be “valid”? This sounds like the whining of a twelve year old whose father doesn’t think that playing games is as valid as school work. What is work, even? Why are we talking about work? Most of us don’t “work” in the sense our ancestors did. Most of us sit in chairs and wiggle our fingers, or carry things indoors, in temperature controlled environments. As for “valid”, I was unaware of a ministry for declaring the validity of work. Is this “Pay me for doing things that benefit no one?” I suspect it is. But you see, that’s bullshit. You can do whatever you want so long as you support yourself. (The reason most trust fund babies are useless.) No one cares. But you can’t force people to pay you for doing what you want to do which benefits no one else. Even if you call it “work.” You are free to call whatever you want to do “work” and people are free not to pay you for what amounts to strange forms of onanism.

Not needing to accomplish anything to be worthy is another fun one. Worthy of WHAT? Most Christians believe that all humans are worthy of basic respect and treatment as humans and co-equal children of G-d. That’s a religious belief. But what the heck is worthy, even, in the context above? Again, worthy comes with freight. Worthy of what? And no, you are not worthy of respect, adulation, or even frankly passing interest, unless you have done something that renders you so. You’re worthy of basic decent treatment, maybe, unless you’re a whiny pain in the *ss, in which case you’re worthy of shutting up and going to your room without dinner. Your worth is not measured by deeds, maybe, but it should be measured by behavior. You behave like a decent human being, you’re likely to get the same in return. Anything else? Well. Do the thing, and we’ll give you the respect. The thing can be simply working to feed yourself (and/or others you’re responsible for.) Or it can be some great artistic or scientific feat. Then you’ll be worthy. Of respect, admiration, whatever you’ve earned. So, yes, you need to accomplish something. What that is, depends on how much respect/adoration/whatever you want. My question here being: Why are you so focused on what others think of you?

Communists don’t believe in souls. No, seriously. Read Communist manifesto. Of course you’re not defined by what you produce. You’re fed by what you produce. Okay, sometimes not directly, but see here, a society that doesn’t rely on enslaving others to your needs works like this: You make something others value (or trade your time away to do something others value). In return they give you tokens of exchange. You use these to get what you need: food being a primary thing. But if you work hard and do something really valued, you might even get a lot of free time to do things you know no one will pay you for. This is easier in free and prosperous (the two go together) societies because there is so much extra food, wealth, time.

And we’re back to worth. What in actual h*ll is “worth” in this sense? No, man is not the sum of what he does or learned or the certificates achieved. To all this he must add something more in the awareness that others exist and that in a decent society he owes them respect and dignified treatment; to all this he must also add enough self-awareness to try to avoid injuring others or mistreating them, including taking advantage of them. What the heck this has to do with “worth” is a complete puzzle to me.

I’m not usually slow in decoding language, but it seems to me this pathetic little poster uses “worth” to mean “love.” And to claim he/she should be loved regardless of what he/she does…. or not. Which is cute, but is the scream of a toddler. Whether you’re loved without doing anything to deserve being loved is a matter of luck. Your parents might be stupid enough to love you no matter how many times you spit on them. I doubt anyone else will be.

For other people, normally, to be loved you have to be capable of love first. This means you have to be aware that other people exist as separate entities from your pathetic little self. nothing in the semantic confusion of this stupid “anti-capitalist” screed leads me to believe the writer is aware other people exist or what society would be like if we all followed his deranged prescriptions. So, the scream of a toddler, with a full diaper, who has just taken all the other kids toys and broken them, and now stands there insisting you must love him.

As for not monetizing hobbies: everyone has to make that decision. I’m broken the other, and am going to have to monetize my hobbies, because otherwise I feel like I should write all the time. Greed? No, not really. But what I’m paid for produces the most, which is good for me, and my family. It allows us take the kids and spouse/future spouse out now and then, and get the good vet care for the elderly cats.

However, because changing pace helps me rest, I should be doing things other than writing, at least one day a week. If I monetize “war with snails” medieval ornaments, or making dragons or something, I’ll do more of that. Which will be good for me. (Even if they’ll never make as much as writing.) HOWEVER I know people have other different internal demands and make different choices. Larry Correia, famously doesn’t monetize his very good miniature painting, because otherwise he’ll nag himself over getting it done and it will stop being fun. And that’s fine.

Note to person who wrote this: Hobbies are an invention of what you (and Marx) call capitalism, also known as the free market. You see, people wanted things, and other people wanted to sell these things to them. The sellers wanted to optimize their making of saleable things, from which drive eventually the industrial revolution was born. Also fertilizers and better agricultural techniques. This, in turn, made people have enough they didn’t need to work from when they woke up in the morning till they slept at night, which even most of the rich did till about 200 years ago. Which in turn allowed them to have hobbies: things they do not for money.

So, yeah, you can do extra things you do and don’t sell. You might think this is some kind of natural right, but it’s not. It’s the result of centuries of free trading, which the idiot who wrote this wants to wreck because he’s an idiot who thinks the world owes him a living and food just falls from trees. (Jean Jacques Rousseau. If we invent a time machine, we need to make sure he’s whipped every day and twice on Sunday until he either stops being stupid or quits writing.)

As for defining what success looks like for you, this sound like the toddler again. “It’s good if I say it’s good.” Because he cares passionately what society says.

Most of us have long ago defined our own success and don’t give a hang what “society” thinks. Society might think that jet setting lifestyles are success, but I hate traveling and like my routine, for instance. Society might think that certain fashions are needed, or certain designers. I slouch around in jeans and t-shirts.

Success for me is feeding and taking care of myself and mine, having raised kids who (so far, knock on head) didn’t turn out mass murderers, and writing books people pay me for. That’s it.

Who the heck is “society” anyway? The person writing this would be well served by remembering there is no such thing. There are loud voices, which is what he calls “society” but most people living their own lives, don’t care.

They also don’t care about him, his “worth” or what he chooses to do with his life and time. As long as he’s not a burden on others, or forcing others to give him his “needs” at gunpoint, the rest of us couldn’t care less. It’s not so much that the world doesn’t owe you a living. It doesn’t, of course. It’s more that the world doesn’t owe you NOTICING YOU EXIST. That is the reality for every single one of us. Sane people don’t crave the attention or love of “the world” or “society.” We have people who matter to us, and from those we crave attention and/or love. Which is fine, so long as we’re capable of giving THEM attention and love.

Look, it’s not just that if you don’t work you don’t eat. This might or might not be true in our society. Free trade (that despised “capitalism”) has made us so prosperous, at least in countries that remain somewhat free that most people won’t starve. Other people, out of charity or pity will give you money or food or a place to sleep.

It’s more that man — and woman, for the twits who need that spelled out — is made to strive. We are the product of a long evolution in which our ancestors worked desperately and were always on the verge of disaster. Without something to struggle against/attempt to get better/more/ work for/endure/etc we stagnate. We lose track of what’s important. We start thinking that the creations of our mind are of primary importance, even if they not only don’t serve any purpose, but aren’t wanted by anyone else. We end up believing in nebulous constructs like “society” and “worth” and demand that one give us the other.

The truth is that more self-worth and self-respect is found in doing a menial job that pays for your own basic needs than in all the self-involved art no one would pay for.

The other truth is that if you want to do something passionately enough, you also want it to be seen by the most people possible That means not only getting technically better at it, but getting better at it in a way other people will pay you for it. Because words of love are one thing, but when people give you their beer or coffee money for what you created you know they mean it.

The truth is that if you can find something you’re good at — art, craft or service — and get good enough people pay you for it, you can spend your entire life struggling against your own limitations, be happy and fulfilled and not care what the “world” at large thinks, and whether you have “worth” in an abstract sense.

Go and find something large enough it’s worth striving against and this nonsense will fix itself. And pay your own way while you do it. And you’ll be someone worth knowing.

*I want to apologize for two guest posts in a row. I’m still late on the serializing blog too. So: Dan had hernia surgery in the beginning of the month for multiple hernias. He’s healing slowly, which is normal for diabetics. This means he can’t lift anything. So I must go shopping with, etc. just in case. On top of added responsibilities because of younger son and future DIL being out (Cats, quails to look after) this week and next, things have entered a vortex of crazy on this side. I got up at 7 am and first sat at a keyboard half an hour ago. This too shall pass. And I’ll write tomorrow. But I had a guest post waiting and chapters are more needful right now, since people are paying for them. – SAH*

Associations A guest Post by David Bock

Associations are funny things. You can be associated with people you’ve never met or ideas that have no bearing on your life or are even diametrically opposed to the ideas you actually hold.

As someone with strong feelings about firearms freedom, especially in a place as unfriendly as New York, this happens with alarming regularity.

This type of forced association occurred in almost every conversation I had with my mother where the subject of guns came up. In our last conversation on this topic, she stated I had too many guns. Mom didn’t quite know how to respond when I instantly came back with “there’s no such thing.”

When I was young, my mother actually tried to blame World War Two on “people like you.” She meant people with my interest in firearms.

If I had a dollar for every time it was suggested I held a certain political position simply because of my respect for the Second Amendment, I’d have a much larger collection of firearms.

For example, in addition to American Rifleman, over the years I‘ve had subscriptions to Guns & Ammo, Shooting Times, Gun Tests, and a few other related magazines. Apparently, some marketing algorithm decided that since I liked guns, I’d also be interested in mailings from cigar distributors, whiskey distilleries, anti-abortion (or pro-life if you prefer) organizations, and various flavors of political mailers.

I don’t smoke (but I do like pancakes), I don’t drink, and while I’m conflicted in the case of abortion, I don’t think it’s the government’s job to make that decision for anyone, pro or con. Needless to say, those mailings did not get a positive response.

Since the Second Amendment is my litmus test for favor, the same is often true with politicians. If I mention that I like a certain politician’s record on gun ownership, I must, therefore, support all their other positions.

Politically, I generally lean small L libertarian. Or as I like to put it, I’m a member in good standing of the “leave me the hell alone” party.

Which reminds me of another example, years ago, I was hanging out with some friends in college and one of them asked me about my personal politics. I answered with something along the lines of “I’m not really sure, but I’ve been told that I’m probably closest to libertarian.”

He came back at me by stating I must be against child labor laws. When I expressed confusion, he said that I claimed to be libertarian and libertarians don’t support child labor laws.

This showed me two things about this person. They hadn’t listened to what I’d actually said and they were more interested in playing a game of ‘gotcha’ then in having a rational discussion.

Before we moved out of New York, I was involved with Cowboy Action shooting, I may start that up again in our new home, but that’s for another time.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Cowboy Action Shooting is a competition involving lever action rifles, single action revolvers, and double barrel or early pump shotguns at relatively close range steel targets. All this while dressed in historical period or Hollywood cowboy style clothing. It‘s lots of fun.

Anyway, this was around the same time as the passage of the New York State mirror of the Federal Assault Weapons ban, so around 2000. I was at an event and was chatting with some of the shooters. Now, you would expect that folks participating in a shooting event would be generally pro-gun. Nope, their big concern was that the law didn’t affect their firearms and sport. They assumed that since I was there that I must feel the same way. Imagine their shock when I stated my opposition to this law and many of the other gun laws that were already on the books.

It was a few years before I felt comfortable enough to go back.

Since the New York SAFE Act in 2013 and the 2016 presidential election, the false associations people have applied to gun owners have gotten worse.

If it turns out some pro-gun political candidate I commented on approvingly has ties to the Ku Klux Klan. “David, are you part of the Klan?” Mmmm, probably not a lot of Jews in the KKK.

Some elected official makes a negative remark about a member of the Queer community, possibly not even having to do with their sexuality. “David, are you a homophobe?” If so, I’m really bad at it since I was one of the early volunteer instructors with Operation Blazing Sword.

I mention I find almost any comedian funny. “David, how can you support such misogyny?” Why don’t you ask any of my many female friends how I treat women? Especially the ones I taught to shoot.

I know I should be patient and calm with these accusations, but it gets harder and harder every year. One day, if I live long enough, I expect to become one of those cranky old men who will tell you exactly what they think in no uncertain terms.

I’m kind of looking forward to that.

Letter From A Minotaur: Dear Humans, you F[REA]KING MADE IT! – by Orvan Ox

Yeah, sure, things looks difficult and maybe even grim, now. But that’s a look down to one of the highest abysses (yes, I know that seems nonsense) from an even higher Really High Ground.  Yes, things are going weird, screwy, and the immediate future is not going to be wine and roses. There are certainly places to not be – downtown in many large cities, even in the First World. All too many supposedly “enlightened” places in Europe. The parts of Asia under tyrannical governance. And, well, pretty much all of Africa – but what else is new? But this is 2023, not 1923, not 1823, not 1723, and it dang sure ain’t 1323! What follows is a far complete list of things, but… consider:

You want light? Flip a switch or push a button. You don’t even need a match. And that’s assuming you haven’t already automated it or have this or that system working for you with voice command. Your biggest health problem, at least until the Great Silliness of late, was – of all things – that it’s too easy for too many to get too fat. That, alone, would have pretty much all of history begging to get in. Starvation is something many would have to work at… and it takes governments being not merely tyrannical, but downright EVIL to generate a famine in your modern world. You looked Famine and Starvation in the eye, kicked them hard in the shorts, and said, “We will destroy you with… PRODUCTION!” You yank nitrogen from the very air, fiddle with it some and make ammonia, and nitrates, and… so on. And the world all but grows and blooms at your command.

The Plague, Black Death? Yeah, it’s still around… leashed, collared, watched, and when necessary KILLED. Have you even seen, in person, a person so unfortunate as to be afflicted with Hanson’s Disease? If so, you are one of few to have seen… a leper. And even THAT is treated. You took the rat-fink of a drug that crippled many of a generation – Thalidomide – and aimed it the disease!  You lot took freaking Mustard Agent and aimed it at leukemia! And then you got Serious and all but wiped out smallpox! You humans decided that, at least this once, you’d NOT exterminate to extinction… so you have a couple carefully kept samples.

You have your choices of fibers (and not-fibers!) natural or synthetic for your attire. An admittedly long lifetime ago, it was all ‘natural’, and only precious little per person. A few outfits. One for good, one or two for general life or light work, and maybe something ragged for heavier work. Now? Clothing is often bought “just because” – and it’s not to just fit in, but to stand out… or fit in a particular tiny group.

While you do not (yet?) enjoy energy “too cheap to meter” as was suggested by the early proponents of atomic, er, nuclear power, you having something else that is quite amazing. All those packets flying about the net and such? “Cell” phones? Sure, you pay for a connection, but when was the last time you cared if a call was Long Distance? Connectivity is if not “too cheap to meter” rather close. Communicating across the world is now done without really even thinking about it, save to adjust for differing times – maybe.

Weather forecast are.. mostly accurate. Alright, short term, but even so… it was not so long ago that even that was a risky bet. Now? Tomorrow’s weather might not be sure, but overall it’s at least close to known. And even a few days out isn’t a complete gamble. Now, much more and you still might be better off with a dart board, sure.

And, to a large degree (ahem…) you don’t have to care too much about the weather. Your homes are heated – or even cooled – automatically. You want water? Turn the tap. You want hot water? Turn the other one, or move a control the other way. You have machines to aid in cooking, to aid in cleaning, to move from you here to there, to entertain, and even some to simply exert yourselves with as you no longer do that much physical work because you do not need to.

And yeah, I know, you’re just not satisfied. You have flying machines, but want better ones. You sent some of your own kind to the Moon, but you want Mars… and the stars. You have this, that, and the other… and want more and better, faster and cheaper. And since you guys don’t really quit, you’ll get it, too. Eventually.  I might have seen some of this. Maybe even a lot of this. But this I know: I ain’t seen NUTHIN’ yet!  You look to the future, invent it, declare it obsolete and go on to invent an even better one. Over and over.

And the real miracle, the thing all the other things beget? You have… TIME.

But every once in a while, for just a moment, stop, ponder, look back, and realize… YOU F[REA]KING MADE IT!

Carry on! After all, there’s an even better tomorrow in need of being invented, right?