Very well said.
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Care Less And Less
I care less and less what others think. I know that there is a big political aspect to what is going on right now and that it is important to get the largest possible group of people behind our ideas. What Mathias Desmet says about the importance of continuing to voice dissent is true. But it makes me tired and despondent. Chris talks about the “trusted source.” It is very clear that the people around me, do not see me as a trusted source. Is it Ego then to think, “so figure it out for yourself”?
I no longer warn people of what is to come. I work hard to protect me and my girlfriend and children as best I can. My garden requires constant attention. My finances require constant attention. My accumulation of all 8 forms of capital requires constant attention. I no longer feel like throwing pearls before swine.
When it is too late they will come to me with nice talk, “Yes, NOW I see you were right.” Yes, of course you do see it NOW. You saw me working hard too but then you didn’t give a damn and watched TV. Sorry, but thinking like that has nothing to do with hurt ego.
I know this is how it will go and I also know I won’t be able to refuse my family when they literally show up on my doorstep. They will get a shovel or saw in their hands from me and they will have to work for a living. Literally.
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COL (chuckling out loud). A couple years ago I basically said just that to Nasim under one of his videos. I was stunned in a good way by his books but he just babbled in his videos. As I remember I didn’t get any dissent and I think somebody agreed. Till then he was a god.
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Hey just bought it on Kindle!
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Et come ecrit pur adjour dui!
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Be Comfortable With Yourself
Such a great to-the-point video. Don’t have much time right now for long reads, so thanks!
Something that helped me was realizing that you first need to ACCEPT the situation, before you try to talk to somebody. When I look back on summer 2020 (and I was awake from the beginning) I realize that I couldn’t accept that the people in my environment were being manipulated. They were just as intelligent as I am right? So sharing my knowledge would close the gap…I also thought that the longer I waited with “waking people up” the more damage would be done. I was in a fighting mode all the time. It’s a fight you’re not going to win amidst this hysteria and overwhelming propaganda.
Secondly, stemming from my first point: be comfortable with being different. It makes people curious about you. I know people who chose their own path in life. As a child I found them a bit awkward, but they were comfortable with themselves, so they were not in conflict. Not with themselves, not with others. Now I’m older and realize that their life style and opinions weren’t so weird after all and they were quite free and happy.
I realized I was also fighting the image people might have of me. Especially when they use words they picked up from the media. I try to focus on my thing and not identify with those words.
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Hey Mike, thank you kindly; I’d be interested to hear what you think. Le Bon was an interesting and brilliant character, a polymath and maverick–technically within the university system while also being a free-thinker that other (conformist) faculty regarded with suspicion–and envy (because he sold more copies than all of his colleagues combined). Peu de choses ont changé.
As mentioned in the notes, it’s as much a brush-hogging of the 1895 English as it was a retranslation. The Edwardian translators did an excellent and valuable job but their style has become brambly (fashions change) and they quietly suppressed a few troublesome words here and there–most notably the adjective “ignorant” when Le Bon described Jesus as “un ignorant charpentier,” which is not necessarily an insult or cause for scandal. (I translated it as “unschooled.”)
I get into many of these issues in the notes and essays in the back; it was a fun and challenging project (I’m not holding myself out as an expert) and there’s some subversive humor in the some of the notes. When I was 18, I read Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, and I’ve never been the same since. The footnotes on de Selby are possibly the most hilarious and hyper-articulate expressions of the obsessive mind rendered anywhere in English. Encore une fois, merci!
Oui, c’est très pertinent. Le Bon est un Peak Insider 
No doubt Le Bon is an interesting cat–wrote about vastly different things including horse behavior, subatomic physics, and education.
He was a big believer in practical, hands-on education (apprenticeships, etc.)–and admired the American vocational training of the late 19th c. He’d almost certainly not be impressed by the state of education today.
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I am at 6%. I love the practical/observable vs theoretical as I come from a background of semi-Skinnerian (that’s when he drove a truck) programmed instruction with behavioral objectives.
Merci, Homme Verais.
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Ditto! Really hating the snowflake,marshmallow gen. People are so weak nowadays
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You can’t take the shot back, once it is in you it will always be there.
Beautiful!
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Kate,
That’s a tough and lonely place to be. I am grateful to have a partner with whom I share everything about this journey we’re on, the most important of which for me is being able to discuss anything and everything with an open mind.
We’ve got a great community here and you certainly won’t find any off-limits topics, so be sure to take advantage of all the great people here to bounce ideas off of. Or maybe to feel less alone.
It’s difficult to be isolated with thoughts and ideas, especially when you can back them up with data and logic.
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Thanksgiving
I accidentally hosted Thanksgiving this year, by which I mean my sister was supposed to, but bailed and I did not manouver quickly enough, so that it landed on me…although she still tried to supervise with me as remote-control hostess, by commanding me to do things the way she would have, had she done it. I should note that she did the heroic potluck feat of bringing the turkey…an hour late, just when I was planning to make an emergency frittata as the main dish. I’m pleased to report that my family and friends have already mastered the art of being ungovernable. One friend told inappropriate stories. My mother proclaimed loudly that all vaccinated people are SHEEP! even though some guests were vaccinated. My diabetic husband raided the dessert table multiple times, like a sugar-seeking missile. My brother brought his elderly dog, who drooled on the floor and used sad puppy eyes to make us give him far too many turkey treats. One guest played the trombone for everyone and made elephant and monkey noises which mde the kids jump beserkly around the living room to get away from the animals.
In short, it was Thanksgiving as it always is with my tribe,the people I love who also drive me crazy. I was very conscious of savoring it all, the chaos and the beauty mixed in the same bowl. This year felt to me like the last Thankgiving of the old world.
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Communicating Effectively
This is a great mini-presentation and very applicable in my own life. Thank you Chris!
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Hi Kate,
Your situation reminds me of my own a few years ago. My wife (and her family) and I divorced 2 years ago, largely over this discrepancy in world views.
One of the things that you and your husband have going for you that we did not, is that you guys seem to be finding it possible to have such differences, but to kind-of, at least, let those differences just be there.
It sounds like you can notice his intelligence, integrity, motivation and the goodness of his heart. And that he can yours–even while being baffled by how “wrong” the others understandings are.
My marriage ended when we lost that basic respect for the person. I became framed as delusional and paranoid. A psychiatric diagnosis of the defects in my being. And I framed her and her family as “sheep,” “devoid of creativity,” “unable to think in multiple dimensions,” “caught in the NYT echo chamber,” “unwilling to look at perspectives outside the box.” So it was not just the disagreement in world view, was followed by a loss of fundamental respect for the others being.
In contrast, I have the same huge discrepancy in world views with my two adult daughters. But the relationships are so important that we can let each other just be very different. Somehow, we continue to see each other as deeply good and wonderful despite the different world views.
(Admittedly, not living with my daughters and not needing to make joint decisions with them makes it easier to both, see the world differently, and still be in love with each other. Quite different from a spouse.)
And, that is a lonely place. You will need friends who share your world view and see that you are good, smart, inquisitive and well read–and like that! I have valued the frinedship of like minded people here! Pure gold.
?
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Communications
I have largely stopped trying to sway anyone now, as most people have chosen “sides”. It is almost a psychological necessity for the vaccinated to double down on the narrative; to admit that the jabs were unsafe and ineffective, they would also have to come to terms with future impairment, and what damage they have done to themselves. The sad part is having friends and relatives die and suffer illness they could have avoided. Being able to say ‘I told ya so’ offers no solace, only sadness in someone’s passing. My more recent unjabbed circle are happy to discuss things, the jabbed don’t want to know.
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What a sad dynamic, but one which has become all too familiar. Did you ever think that one day the government would get between you and your friends, family and marriage? He’s convinced he’s right. You’re convinced you’re right. Who will be vindicated in the end? As Kunstler used to put it: “Reality has mandates of its own.” NPR can make stuff up and vomit it into people’s ears, but reality doesn’t care what NPR cooked up in its disinformation department. Spike proteins which leak into the bloodstream lead to certain irrevocable consequences as per the laws of biology; laws which cannot be subverted or repealed they way politicians routinely do in the US government.
People who don’t make an effort to apprehend reality and to spare themselves needless suffering will unfortunately have it coming. It is objectively just and right, albeit sad, that they should be punished. But it is unfair that they should pull others down with them who did not make bad choices. I hope you’re mentally preparing for life without him.
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Wonderful Truth Tellers Have Emboldened Me To Not Give Much Of A Crap
For about a year and a half into covidmania, I kept my views mostly to myself, feeling like I’d be terribly shunned and isolated if I revealed my vaccine status or questioned the narrative. But after following so many wonderful truth tellers and maybe because I’m just tired of the stupidity of it all, these days I’ll make blunt statements and ask blunt questions, hoping to plant seeds, and if not, well, I really don’t give a crap. I don’t usually initiate conversations around covid, but if the topic comes up, I have no qualms sharing my views, come what may.
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