Dear Family,
I really appreciate YOU. I woke up this morning and found that all sorts of humor and wisdom had landed in my inbox, and it is much easier to laugh at Crazy when others do, too! Plus also, this was an amazing day for weather: we only got strong winds and rain last night, no insane flooding like in DC and NJ and NYC, and it was like a miracle of sunshine and cool breezes and blue skies.
Here are a sprinkling of your comments (feel free to respond if you wish; I won’t share identifying details), plus a couple of my own at the bottom:
“…These are indeed troubling times, and I have to say, lately I have been feeling particularly heartbroken and unsure myself of how best to move forward in a way that does minimal damage, feels in alignment with my own inner moral compass, and still brings joy and fulfillment to my day to day.”
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“…although I agree 1,000,000% with you on EVERYTHING, my conclusions are vastly different. Which is so very interesting to me! …I have given up the ‘Good Ole Days’ mindset. I now fully realize that there have been no perfect times in human history since the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve made their forced departure from there to toil and travail on this earth. Whether you mean cavemen times or Little House on the Prairie times or any other time in history, man has had his share of woes of one sort or another. If truth be told, we have it quite good today in many ways and then quite bad in other ways, just like all generations. Most importantly we CAN'T/WON'T go back, so why waste time on futile wishful thinking. Is anyone going to turn in their SUV to walk or ride a horse like my grandma did to her honeymoon? [Isn't that crazy??!! My grandma born in 1891, lived til 1995 - saw trains, planes, automobiles and spaceships be invented!] It won't happen, people will not willingly give it all up for the sake of the planet, I don't think. And to mistakenly fantasize about better days of long ago, is a futile waste of time to me these days. Let me enjoy the good I have right now, especially since it's not going to change IMHO…”
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“‘Someone else's trauma does not invalidate my own.’ Think about it - that's like saying that because somebody else has a much better life than you do, you're not allowed to be grateful for your own life, such as it is.
“It's a slave-mentality to believe that just because one has first-world problems, not third-world problems, that he has no right to complain or to hurt or to wish to redress injustice, etc..
“Mass Hysteria institutions like state-sponsored religion inculcate a slave-mentality. So does school. In fact, every aspect of our dysfunctional socioeconomic system fosters a slave-mentality. Most of pop culture celebrates our slavery & servitude as a middle-class success (!?!?) Mass Hysteria is 5,000+ years old; it's synonymous with capitalism and plant-centered dieting (i.e. land ownership and malnutrition), at least since the Copper Age.
“The aberration or outlier is the individual who is not domesticated. And he will be persecuted, ha ha, unless he can keep quiet about the psychological torture. But look at what opportunities the internet gives free-thinking people to provide moral support. (The Ruling Class h.a.t.e.s. this.)
“…Maybe 1984 is our species's future. Maybe the last 20% of our n.a.t.u.r.a.l. human spirit - not yet domesticated - will be bred out of the population??? But I remain optimistic. I choose to see our day 'n' age as the transition from Copper Age capitalism to Space Age socialism. It may take centuries. It began with the Renaissance & Enlightenment, but the significant inflection point in the curve of our trajectory was the French Revolution and then 19th century hydrocarbon technologies.
“Our species's transition from Stone Age communalism to Stone Age capitalism (land ownership + plant-centered dieting + a division of labor based on social class, no longer based on age & sex) transpired n.a.t.u.r.a.l.l.y. over centuries & millennia - *except* where it occurred suddenly & unnaturally (e.g. First Contact with pre-agricultural peoples in the New World). Wherever communalism turned into capitalism overnight the results were invariably genocidal.
“That's why I can remain optimistic about the future of our species even while believing that we cannot transition from capitalism (from a slave-mentality) to a genuine socialism overnight: because the result would be genocidal! … I don't wish for overnight change - because I don't think it's possible.
“… What recent new resources for preserving my sanity??? Answer: podcasts! I can recommend the No Agenda podcast for news analysis, especially deconstruction of the RonaMania narrative.
“Then, just for mental stimulation and a diversion from the world's ills, I recently discovered The Common Descent podcast. The topic is paleontology. The two hosts resemble me; I see myself in them, and they show me a path in Life that I might have taken. I can recommend episode 25, on Mankind's involvement in the Great Pleistocene Extinction for newcomers to the podcast, who might not otherwise be particularly interested in paleontology.”
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And then along came a recommendation for this fascinating blog post, which I super recommend reading in its entirety. I would love to know if you have information that contradicts the truthfulness of the major statements within. Because, see, at the risk of you thinking I am actually a conspiracist: I am not super impressed by the mainstream Covid narratives, and especially not the frenzied panic that is encouraged at every turn, to the major detriment (I believe) of our health, society, small businesses, communities large and small, and personal relationships. I have to say - in the words of another friend of ours - something stinks to high heaven about the situation we find ourselves in right now. So when I read this article today, discussing the both yawn-inducing and simultaneously hyperbolic possibility that our economic system is not just finding wondrous synchronicity in Covid, but might have actually caused both its initial widespread publicity and lockdown recommendations AND be fanning the current flames of fear …I found myself nodding along in fascinated wonderment.
Anyway, I am actually not going to worry (much) about what you might think about my motivations for seeking explanations for our insane economic and political situation. This article has no mention of 5g nor chemtrails, and so treads new ground in my book, and begs many questions, including this enormous one: how on earth can we take seriously a method for sustaining human lives and culture that relies largely on things called “Financial Instruments”? That’s like my six year old, who depends largely on Magic for her games of make-believe. Except there are only a few thousand humans in this entire world who currently own most of the magical money we like to think we understand, while the rest of us plebes depend on it and bicker over it and kill each other for impressively smaller bits of the rest of it, every day. No conspiracy there, but a whole lotta stinky possibilities… I would love to hear what you think.
http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-co…
Thanks again for existing.
Xoxo
Sarabeth