This is a very bad time for a lot of people. In fact, perhaps it's a bad time for everyone. We've been kicked around so stupidly by people who were supposed to be acting in our best interests that even those like me who never really trusted experts feel betrayed.
The nature of the betrayal, too, means that lives were ruined, young people were destroyed, education and job prospects blighted. All of us -- I think every last one of us -- lost friends or relatives, because things like cancer checkups were suddenly "elective" for two years.
Even those of us who suffered almost nothing, who still have jobs and whose marriage didn't implode, and who are losing the stress weight they gained in lockdown didn't emerge unscathed. Last week I was talking to a friend how difficult it is to nerve oneself to any social gathering. This is not just for large gatherings -- every time a con looms, I start looking for ways to cancel, even if I really, really, really want to go. (And we might need to cancel either SOS or Liberty con this year, for legitimate reasons, not because of this. At the VERY LEAST we're going to have trouble getting the cats looked after if we attend one or both. Because of family things it means we'd be away a full three weeks, and on the road. And after Helena, boarding isn't an option.) But to be fair, I've never been fond of cons, because they're WORK. And because I have to be in my public persona around a lot of people, some of which will inevitably be, at best, disagreeable and at worst hostile. But now it's difficult to nerve myself to see friends, even when I don't have to travel, which I have always hated. My regular Tuesday "have coffee with a local writer" thing is often on the chopping block, because I freak out before he gets here. Keep in mind that the entire thing is, he comes over and has coffee. Sometimes we talk. Often we just each type at the same table. But I have a quiet freakout and have to stop myself cancelling before he arrives. Or, note I quietly freaked out before Thanksgiving and Christmas, even though the guests were my sons and their spouse/fiance. But they were "more than two people who don't live with me." Freakout.
I'm still fine with going out into groups of people I don't know, with Dan, and sitting quietly and just observing. Okay, fine, to translate, "I'm still okay going into diners and having a meal." And mildly okay going to church, if it's not too packed. Everything else, I FREAK OUT. I usually freak out quietly and internally, mind, but it's still very annoying, because this was never a thing before. it's just a scar.
As far as I can tell that's the only (biggish) scar I carry. There might also be a tendency to go from zero into full paranoid mode, or zero into anger more quickly, but that's.... I'm not sure it's so much an effect of the lockdowns as an effect of everything else we've gone through (and I've gone through) in the last three years. Yeah, I'm sure it's been noticed, but truly, I'm trying to keep it down.
However, I'm aware I'm not the most affected, nor do I have reason to be one of the most affected by the entire mess of the last three years.
There's a great anger stalking the land. It's mostly visible on blue on blue (or in our case, I guess red on red, to update the old meme) conflagrations that come out of nowhere. (Not that the usual shit weasels don't stand by to instigate/claim it's out of nowhere after countless provocations. That's condition normal for this kind of situation.) But also sometimes in person, in odd silences, in puzzled expressions.
I think mostly all that's keeping the anger from erupting in horrible -- and likely misdirected, because anger isn't rational -- violence is two things: One, Americans really are fundamentally, decent people. Our civic culture and mutual help and assistance between equals lingers enough that we tend to default to helping each other rather than taking advantage of disruptions. (People in general, not the paid astroturf of the left.) And Two, what was done to us was so large, so horrible, that we can't fully conceptualize it. The injury was so massive that we're still stunned and scrambling.
Put it this way: stealing elections is old hat for the left. But doing it by inventing a horrible plague out of a disease that was not big thing (and be aware, because the right is setting up to fall for the same bs again. Note the paper from China was not peer reviewed, so it's just them bragging, because why not. I doubt what they're bragging of could be achieved in a way that would affect the world, and not kill ten people and be gone, by US with our higher precision, care, etc. Fro them, it's beyond reach. Second, the "disease x" thing from the Dravoniacs it's just psyops. They're trying to see if it sticks. Be neither afraid nor stupid) and shutting down not just us, but the rest of the world for verisimilitude? That took a special kind of crazy disregard for humanity in general that is hard for normal --or even only slightly abnormal-- human beings to conceptualize let alone act on. It's a level of psychopathy that leaves you going "if they were lizardoids from space, what would be different, really?"
Mind you -- and I laughed yesterday when reading a Darvoniac lamenting that somehow, inexplicably, the last three years meant that the people in general no longer trust the institutions or the news, so that their Green New Deals and Great Resets and other grand plans of a Bond-villain kind suddenly seemed to be out of reach -- part of the reason for the idiocy spreading all over the world came from the Darvoisie thinking they could use it to achieve their entire agenda faster. Which goes to show you what I keep telling you "Yes, they plan all these things, but we get a vote too. And these people have not thought of all the second, third, or even first order effects of their oh, so cunning plans." Or if you prefer, not only aren't they the sharpest tool in the shed, there's reason to believe they might be a chocolate hammer.
But the point remains: the world suffered a massive injury, in ways the idiots planning the whole thing weren't even aware would happen. And America specifically suffered a kick in the pants that removed the rest of the illusions we had about the left in this country. Even if most people are still trying to get back into their soft, warm illusions and close their eyes. It's not possible, and they also know that at some level, which only makes them angrier.
The problem with this free floating, undirected because the legitimate targets are all too far from us, anger is that people can sense it. And some are even aware they're tamping their own anger down.
And people can sense all this anger, this feeling of "say the wrong thing and everything blows up" and it turns to fear.
Heck, even those of us who think about the whole thing -- overthink, as they've been telling me since I was 3 or so -- are afraid, at a more rational level. Because the whole analogy of the lever (on the left) and the button (on the right) is not wrong. The left thinks of violence as a tool they use to get what they want. Sane people think of violence as a last resort thing. Which means if you use it.... it's your last resort. This is why Americans are usually slow to wars and then finish them (when not held in check by the left, who again, think it's a tool.)
The problem is that there is all this anger. If the button gets pushed, the anger is going to feed into the whole thing. Which means chances of its being restricted, or even hitting the legitimate targets then turning off are zero. Or less than that. This won't be "We get rid of those holding us down, then we are done." This will be "We get rid of those holding us down, then the traffic cop who gave me an unjust ticket, then the football player who hit my guy too hard, then the guy in the coffee shop who was rude to me, then the guy who looked at me funny, then this guy who did nothing, but my hand hurts from killing so many people." Which is why some of us are trying to hold it back, unless it becomes absolutely necessary (and alas it might) because we're talking of Madame Guillotine and her insatiable hunger. And you know, sure, that was a proto-communist revolution, but it was also the payback of centuries of oppression, disparagement and mistreatment by a tiny minority. The anger was there. If you want to know how out of control it burned, you should read about it. People went to the guillotine because a neighbor thought they were too stingy with the potatoes served at the potluck and no, not joking.
Yes, maybe Americans will be different. We are in so many things. I still have to wonder what's in the heads of the people streaming in. I know what's in the heads of those bringing them in, and that's that they're creating their own private army. But that's not how any of this works. If the restive population turns (so much rides on the elections. And no, the idiots have no clue) at the very minimum everyone who sticks out will be in danger. (As someone with a noticeable accent, ask how happy this makes me.) This is likely to be worldwide, which is why I tell you it's a really bad idea to move somewhere you'll stick out. But in the US we're not used to it, and in addition to the sheer mess it will be, there will be recovering after, and dealing with what happened and the scars it leaves.
This is just to give an idea of the legitimate fear most people who think and can see past the next week are living with. Then there's the free floating fear because we sense the anger, ours and others, and don't know when it will blow up. And then there's the fear and anger occasioned by knowing that our institutions and most of our press are in the hands of psychopaths, who'd as soon look at us as fillet us for breakfast.
Yesterday in a group fear was brought up, and Cedar -- who some of you know has a ... complex and not easy history, i.e. she's a survivor of things most of us would have been destroyed by -- said "you know what comes after fear? I come after fear."
And I realized suddenly and clearly that this applies to me too. I am what's here, after fear. After doing things that literally felt as though they'd kill me. Things that probably killed a lot of me.
Let me explain: I always laugh when I get called a happy warrior, for the same reason I always laugh when I get called an optimist. I can see how people get that idea, but what they're looking at is not what I am naturally, nor what I started out with. It's what came after. After the fear, after the trials, after doing things that I thought were impossible. After thinking I would die in all meaningful ways if-- And then the if happened, and we survived. Something died, but something survived. Which one was really me is a good question. But a philosophical one. I'm still here. I came after the fear.
I don't have the kind of background Cedar had. I had my own trials, some of them severe, but it's not my story to tell, and a lot of it has to do with when and were I lived at the time.
However, by the time I was an adult, I was so conflict avoidant and agreeable that most people had absolutely no idea what I really thought. All the groups in college claimed me, including the communists, who were convinced I was really, secretly, a sympathizer. (I kept my hooliganism away from the college, because I could endure physical confrontation. Had learned not to flinch from it years before, but I could not endure even mild conflict with people I'd have to see every day.) Mostly I smiled and slid out from under any mildly threatening argument/issue. And, like now, I hated traveling. I hated being among strangers. I hated having to make new connections.
Marrying Dan was the first time I lost my mind. And it wasn't my fault. When he proposed, I saw very clearly that it would mean losing all my connections; going to a place where my laboriously acquired and very impressive credentials meant nothing; a place where I'd always sound funny. Now, I loved the US, and at the time I had an offer for an assistantship at an ivy league and had been accepted for a doctoral program. But I'll be absolutely honest, if I hadn't fallen in love with Dan, the other factors would probably have meant I'd never actually leap. I'd probably still be putting off from year to year coming over, even as way after way offered itself.
However I did love Dan (still do that) and it was stark and clear to me that if I didn't marry him I'd regret it the rest of my life. The connections and credentials thing was just the price. And sometimes the price must be paid.
So, I came over with a little suitcase and burned all my savings-to-date on the plane ticket. And survived. Then survived acculturating, which sometimes quite literally felt like I was falling to pieces/going crazy, as all the fundamental assumptions of who and what I was and my place in the world were questioned and broken and rebuilt.
And after years of not finding work, or finding work I hated with my whole heart, we had a kid, and I didn't want anyone else to raise him, so the whole "get serious about writing" thing came up, and Dan said it was time. I'd been writing the whole time, just you know, never expecting to break in, or expecting it to make much money. I had job(s) for that. The writing was just something I had to do and it happened on weekends and evenings if we had time. I won't say that trying, really trying, wasn't scary. I mean, it was. But mostly I never expected to succeed.
Oh, and along the line there were other things that genuinely terrified me. We moved twice, once across this vast country, away from all the friends, family and familiar things and places we had. Those weren't as scary as moving across the ocean, but they weren't easy, particularly since we had no one to advise us or organize us or even help, so it felt like we were inventing the entire process on our own, as we went along. Oh, the same for looking after the kid and all the financial and other upheavals. None of it was as scary as moving and acculturating. None felt like I would die from doing it.
The only thing that came close was publishing. Particularly once I figured out (pretty much instantly. I have ears and used to hear very well, including conversations across the room) that anyone to the right of Lenin was persona non grata and considered practically a Nazi. (Which let me tel you was a weird experience for a libertarian.) Because I saw them drop people for saying the wrong thing, or not saying the expected thing, and since I didn't know that indie would be a thing, I knew if I were dropped and cancelled and blacklisted, it would end up being all publishers (depending on the reason, to be sure) and then I knew I'd die.
Spoiler: I didn't die. It was unpleasant, but I didn't die. No matter how many years I'd been terrified of it.
And then there's this blog, and coming out politically. Which of course, this blog wasn't supposed to do. It was supposed to be a publicity vehicle. I was supposed to write cute little things about my daily life, and what I was writing, and--
Yeah. At some point I ... okay, I can't explain it, but I had to come out politically. I just had to. For one, I couldn't continue down the path of staying quiet and letting them assume I agreed, much less affirm the crazy and evil things I knew were crazy and evil. I could literally see the point at which I'd lose my soul. And as much as I love writing, and as much as being published is needed for that, because writing is communication, so of course you want to be read, I couldn't go on without becoming unable to look at myself in the mirror.
That felt like dying.
My few, in retrospect rather timid posts in this blog horrified me and terrified me. I usually had to show it to three or four friends/friendly acquaintances before I had the nerve to press publish.
As things got fraught, and I started to take attacks from the left (and sometimes the crazier right) a lot of them bizarre and out of nowhere and claiming things I couldn't understand (irrationality scares me more than just about anything else) how they'd come to think, it felt a lot like dying. The impulse of the still very conflict averse and agreeable person within was to shut up and go away. Only I couldn't. So I didn't. Even when keeping going felt like coming apart and dying.
Does it still feel that way? Not most of the time. Not unless I personally care or at least like the person I'm arguing/fighting with. And that's not very common.
It's still not pleasant, but scar tissue -- though less flexible than unscarred skin -- is less sensitive. It doesn't hurt as badly, and it's not scary. Even knowing the enemy lists I'm on is not scary, though to be fair that never was. There's prices to pay and you pay the price and there's no reason to be afraid of it, no matter how bad. It was the emotional confrontation that terrified me. (And no, I can't explain that. Maybe I'm naturally snow-flakish?)
The life I wanted, what I thought I was setting out to, was being a reclusive fiction writer, who wrote my little stories, and sold them, and made enough to justify not having another job. And no one ever knew my politics or how I felt about things.
That dream -- that person -- died somewhere along the line. The fear died too. THAT fear at least.
And I'm still here.
There is life after the fear. Like Cedar, and perhaps with less justification, and in completely different circumstances, I am what comes after the fear.
I just thought you should know. The fear, itself, and the thing that causes the fear, even when the fear is justifiable, and thing horrible -- like being cancelled from one's life-long avocation -- are survivable. It's possible to stand after the fear.
And maybe the anger if it explodes will burn itself quickly -- we are American anyway, and therefore unpredictable -- and maybe -- well I was vouchsafed a certainty it would be so -- the Republic is ideal or closer to ideal on the other side.
But we have to face whatever comes, and we have to know that we can get through it. We can get through the fear and the anger. And we have to have hope. Doomerism never solved anything. And doomerism has never been right either. Yes, in certain times and places thing have gotten and will get very bad indeed. But the ultimate defeat of the forces of good hasn't ever happened. And communism, the particular hobgoblin we're facing, has never triumphed anywhere. And no -- hattip to Don Surber -- I don't think it will be seventy years. Seventy years is what it lasts with external support. We supported the USSR in many ways, financial and not. Even if we were to go full stupid, there is no one with enough resources to support us. There isn't a USA to support the USA should the USA suddenly go non productive and idiotic. The limit on that seems to be closer to 14 years. Maybe less.The Nazis lasted that long because there were countries they could invade and whose resources could support them. Again, there isn't a country vast enough and rich enough to support us. We could invade half the world, and it would just cost us more resources.
All totalitarian regimes are warmongering. They have to be. It's how they survive. But we can't get anything by wars, except expense. The math doesn't work. 14 years. Maybe less.
And yes -- like Don Surber -- at my age that's likely my remaining life. Or more. But history doesn't move at human pace. it moves at the pace of large groups of people. Which means, slow and stupid. On our side -- and against us, both -- is the fact the left by and large is older than us (their young are both stupid and by and large ineffective) which is part of the reason they're so desperate to "win." And why each misfire drives them nuttier. Which means they're likely to get even crazier than locking down the whole world to steal an election. Which means this might be over earlier, just extremely ugly. There is probably no way to avoid the extremely ugly.
But there is a reason to stoically accept the fear, trust we'll be here when it's gone. And to not let the fear fuel the anger, and not let the anger burn out of control. Yes, it's possible they'll do something so monumentally stupid it all collapses without the anger getting its say. (That is something else to contemplate, because what happens to all that anger then? I don't know.) And we can hope and pray for that. But if the anger must be let out, let's try to keep it small and targeted, and effective. (And no, this isn't a call for violence, Fed the Fred. It's a call for hoping it doesn't come to pass. And if it DOES, to keep it as targeted and small as it can possibly be.)
Don't be ruled by anger and fear. If I hadn't been so conflict avoidant from the beginning, my career would have been completely different and possibly much better. And perhaps the anger wouldn't have built up, and I wouldn't have ended up out of the political closet. I think I am where I'm supposed to be.
But in general, and in group movements letting your fear and your anger decide what you do is bad. And leads to bad things.
So, have hope. Doom is not coming. Something like it might come, but it won't be doom. Not THAT doom at least. And even if it did, we'd survive. Or our children/grandchildren/young people in our nation would/will.
Waste no time on fear. What will happen will happen. And we'll come after the fear.
In a way, we won't be us -- trust me on this -- what we are will die in the conflagration anyway. But we'll become what we have to be. And what we have to be -- as individuals, as a nation, as a civilization -- has a good chance of being better. And it will go on.
Be not afraid.
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