A look back and a look forward

The history of human civilization has been dominated by individual people in roles of prominence, authority, and power over others.

That is shifting. It has been shifting for a very long time. What we have seen over about the last decade is the final last gasp: Hail Mary and Double Down from all those who regard authority as a comfort-blanket teddy bear, allied with authoritarians and their various and sundry water boys. Everyone with stakes in the status quo.

Where I got it wrong in thinking about all this stuff for nearly 35 years since 1991—when that began as I turned 30—is that I thought civilizational and cultural change would come from enlightenment. After all, I became enlightened on my own terms through my own initiative and self-education by convenience and opportunity. It was the best thing I could do with my time at the time. I had lots of time on my hands as the “navigator” of a French Navy warship that spent over 50% of its time in port. Nothing to navigate. French people are rather chill.

Nothing important to do? Allons manger.

… So for the last 34 years I have preached enlightenment far and wide on a range of topics, but primarily politics, philosophy, and diet. I’ve had a lot of success. It’s never very long, and I get a message amounting, basically, to: “you helped me think for myself.”

While I have many opinions and many biases, it’s far more important that you think for yourself. From that perspective, my chief annoyance is never that folks aren’t thinking as I do or coming to my conclusions and judgments, but that they are merely regurgitating what they managed to glean from some authority in their mind. What’s reasonable or true is of no importance. WHO said it is all that’s important to them.

I’ll call it Shitthink.

The worst of those are the well-read. The absolute worst, but I’m not going down that rabbit hole today. I’m not impressed by people who read a lot. Very few read to think better. They read to know what others think and to regurgitate stuff other people said. Or, to restate what other people said in their own style and parlance. I find almost no original thinkers in “well-read” people.

I am not well-read. I got bored 1/3rd of the way through reading all the “classics” of literature and philosophy when I had all that time on my hands. So I just started thinking for myself and writing it down. Essentially, it comes down to limited time…so read, or, think (and write). It’s difficult to do the latter if you take up so much time in the former.

… 2024 was quite a year. A watershed year, one could say. The end of a quarter of a century nobody saw coming. It’s far too much to delve into in any detail.

Electing a “convicted felon” as The Next President of the United States a couple of months ago consolidates the outcome of the first quarter of the 21st Century.

This pot has been brewing since November 7, 1917.

It has taken over 100 years of Leninism, which can be loosely defined: unearned status. You see, the rub is this, and it has always been the same, just different configurations of the same:

What Leninism at its very root seeks to do is exploit or take advantage of jealousy, bitter envy, and a host of other things where, in the natural human experience, some people do better than others. If you create a perfectly level playing field and just drop a bunch of humans onto it, some are always going to do better than others. There’s always a top, let’s say 10%, who do very much better than everybody else. There’s a vast middle who understand this…but there is a certain sector of people who are essentially failures, or simply incapable, or who lack the intellect, wherewithal, energy, talent, or the epic drive.

There will always be some nobodies. Call it “life.”

These individuals are in bed with bitterness. Lenin recognized that there will always be this sector of people. What Leninism seeks to achieve is to elevate these people to unearned statuses based on their grievances. Historically, this was based on factors such as their economic status, their lack of education, lack of intelligence, or their lack of ability. In exchange for their loyalty, they were elevated in an unearned way; they didn’t earn it, they were granted it in exchange for their undying loyalty.

This is why you see people all over social media holding the most insane positions and doubling down on them. It’s not that they’re insane. They’re bargaining for influence and status.

What has shifted in the last few decades is the basis upon which unearned status is granted; something known as Biological Leninism. This is where you use things like race, gender, sexual preference, or transgender status…even weirdness. In exchange for their loyalty to the system of control from the top, these individuals get elevated to the top. And so long as they remain loyal, no matter how fucking crazy it gets, that’s how the political antagonism works in society today. It’s a game of elevating the aggrieved, the envious, and the incapable, all in the name of equity. But really, it’s about control and power.

This is the dirty little secret of modern political movements, especially on the left. They thrive on creating and then exploiting these divisions, ensuring that loyalty to the cause becomes more important than merit, capability, or even sanity. It’s about keeping the populace divided and easily manipulated, all while the elites at the top continue to pull the strings. If you want a society where everyone is equally miserable and equally subservient to a select few, then by all means, keep pushing for this bullshit. But if you value freedom, individuality, and real equality of opportunity, then recognize Leninism for the poison it is and fucking reject it.

[Side note: the three paragraphs preceding the emphasized one, just above, were dictated speech-to-text, and I simply asked our Grok to just clean it up and make it readable, which he did. That last paragraph is Grok’s own “to sum it up” addition. 100% AI. Now how about my AI integration that paying members have unlimited access to?]

… So while everyone gives you all their by-the-minute hot takes on every damn little thing that happens, I’m always looking at huge-swath fundamentals.

I try to read the room. Even if “the room” is the whole world or a good part of it.

And I dismiss ideology and even, to a large extent, culture.

I go to the root.

What is the nature of humanity, of man, and woman…and by extension, the children and families that nature gives rise to?

In other words: Free The Animal.

Everything else is mere potholes in the path. To the extent I indulge in writing and commenting about them, I do so in the order and allure of shtick, style, entertainment, and pragmatic engagement. I’m not a Stoic monk.

… Let’s bring this full circle to what I initially laid out: 35 years ago, I started thinking and writing about what was fucked up in the world—politically, geopolitically, socially, and culturally. My aim was to spark some fucking enlightenment in others. To some extent, I’ve succeeded.

Starting in 2019, until a couple of months ago when Donald Trump was elected president, I recognized something more powerful and everlasting. There’s this sort of fail-safe built into the human condition. It’s great to strive and agitate for enlightenment—especially if your core values are centered around the nature of humanity, men, women, families, and small, supportive communities. Humans are social beings.

Enlightenment is all well and good, but there’s this safety net you can rely on. Insanity in society builds traction through political bullshit and now through fascistic corporate capture—where corporations are in bed with the government and vice versa, which is the classic definition of fascism. So, when you see this shitshow unfolding, asking “What the fuck is going on here?” you get pushback. The pendulum has swung so far in one direction that it’s now swinging back with a vengeance.

And the force behind this swing? It’s the nature of humanity, of men, of women, of families. It’s not necessarily that everyone needs enlightenment—though it’s good to push for it—but you can relax a bit knowing that human beings have their innate natures. When things go too far in the wrong direction, when they become unnatural and everyone knows it, the pendulum naturally starts swinging back.

And that, my friends, defines the year 2024.

… I’ll wrap this up.

I had intended a much different last-day-of-year post. Then I got to the writing, and it turned out entirely different.

Nothing new.

Looking forward, I’ll always have a lot to say in writing and the occasional off video. Everything is always up for grabs.

For 2025, I’m hoping mostly for good signs that the pendulum of insanity is indeed on a back downward trajectory. I’m pretty confident that will largely be the case for a good while. After all, Reagan got about 8 years to pull things back from the stupid cultural excesses of the hippy generation. Trump gets 4, and I’m already confident there’s a good chance enough people will want more of the same in 2024, just as in 1984 (and even to ’88, but Bush I was an abject failure).

We’ll see.

… Otherwise, I have a very renewed and heightened interest in diet and health going forward. Lots to report on already. And I have that membership sale thing going on for just about another 12 hours at the time of this writing. Buy 1 month, get 1 free. A quarter, get another quarter free. 25 bucks off 1st year annual, and the best deal of all: 150 bucks off lifetime. Pay once and never pay again, ever. Details.

Happy New Year.