I read this twice. The first time I was left with a feeling that I’d woken during the night, sleepwalked to my laptop and written it myself, so are the similarities in our experiences and perceptions of this completely farcical few years. Then I read it again and realised, sadly, that I lack the eloquence to write so clearly and succinctly. I feel as though I’m in a different orbit to most around me, seeing things from a different perspective, an outlier. I doubt I’ll ever again share the same orbit with most. And yes, thank god for dogs, they bring peace, joy and provide a conduit between worlds, an honest, faithful constant.
Gosh, I feel exactly the same and your reply has eloquently summed up the reply I wished to make. I am in tears. Grateful that there are others like us but also so, so sad at the loneliness and banality to endure. Love to you and all x
I wonder how many outliers are in this orbit because you're certainly not alone. Existence in two worlds is work and I long for ordinary - peace and joy as you wrote. Honestly, the article and your reply brought tears to my eyes.
There is something a bit 'off' about the return to the old normal. Everyone going about shopping at crowded markets, playing cricket, catching buses without donning the mask as in the old days - yet these are the same people who would willingly, apathetically or enthusiastically trade all this for state-directed 'safety' all over again. There has been no underlying coming-to-terms with the nonsense of the last three years.
After the ideological belligerence provoked by any attempt on my behalf at civil discourse questioning the Covid Narrative, I, too, chose silence when dealing with the True Believers, and I have kept it up even when friends, all fully perforated Covid Cult members, get to talking in mystified ways about their 'sudden' and unexplained health problems pursuant to whatever booster number we are up to.
There's a cricket match going on at the oval next to my house right now - I'm learning to really appreciate the sounds and rhythms of this delightful ordinariness as a reminder of the world I used to know.
It amazes me how subversive it is to try to discuss the last few years. I feel like my church deserted us but who can I say that too. People seem to have picked up life again but it is harder to connect or feel part of something.
People just glaze over and blank you if offer any other view than the status quo. ie The government handled the "pandemic" wee, it saved lives, vaccines are great and save lives and all the discombobulation is imagined and not real. That it was ok to trash the economy etc.
Wow… When I read your article on Brownstone, I couldn’t believe how you were articulating EXACTLY how I feel, every single paragraph. Thanks for writing it.
When one lives through a Zeitgeist, as history has recorded, confusion is a common response while the known world frays and shrivels around us. Then, those who can, pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start all over again, trying to sift through the detritus and recreate their personal world, and, in the doing, help to recreate the world around them. Some, often many on the old 70/30 principle will not be able to do this and will just be carried along in the storm. That is why, it is so important that those who can see, as the writer describes, also work hard to do in the reconstruction of society.
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ( listen)) ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." Frank Zappa.
Prescient Zappa. The world has seen it all before, over and over, the same brand of charlatans with the same tricks, but still it works, people lap it all up oblivious to the risks. At this point, the scenery can be pulled back very, very quickly and reality exposed. I await the gasps of, ‘Good Lord, how did this happen, how did we get here!?’
Beautifully articulated. I got here from Brownstone, and I hope you are widely read there as this essay is a first step in repairing the schism between the worlds. It mirrors what so many are experiencing, what makes half the people, at the latest silenced horror, say they feel like they are in a Twilight Zone episode. And being mirrored allows us to know we are not going stark raving schizoid out of our minds!
It’s extremely important to realise that you are not alone and haven’t been from day 1 of all this nonsense. The writing of people like Richard and others (many I’ve discovered on substack and Brownstone) has been a great source of comfort. It’s not easy being an outlier, especially when there is an obvious, concerted, top-down effort to suppress and even silence dissent, or even slightly different views. I’m sure this was a deliberate tactic from very early on to attempt an illusion of almost complete consensus about the oppressive measures being inflicted on societies all over the world. it then becomes very easy for the orchestrators to create an in-group and out-group, which has been a classic strategy of authoritarian tyrants throughout history to divide society, and marginalise those that challenge their views. Always remember, you are not alone. You are free to speak your mind and by speaking up, you encourage others to do so and prevent the complete descent into tyranny.
The worst part is that they will now board the new train that has pulled up to the platform, with all it's new carriages - `It's not the jab killing/maiming people', `we must stand with Ukraine', `identity politics' and more... all herded together with the `climate crisis' caboose on the end.
It feels like those that you have described are on their own fantasy land journey.
I LOVE this article - just as I loved your 'World A / World B' piece (it was yours, wasn't it?) from a few months back. In fact, I shared a longish excerpt from this latest one on my FB page, hoping that it might strike a chord with a few fellow members of The Resistance.
I then didn't go online for a couple of days, only to find that I had not just an encouraging response, but a HUGE number of 'likes', 'loves' and all sorts of comments (all of them positive), saying how much your words had resonated with them. If you want to have a look / read, it's the post I've now 'pinned' to the top of my page: https://www.facebook.com/jacktravel/
Anyhow, I just wanted to say thanks for articulating so eloquently and so simply what so many of us have been feeling. Despite the continuing and unfolding shitshow, it's both reassuring and empowering to know that we are far from alone.
The moon landings were faked... The elections are rigged.. They are poisoning and murdering us in our face. The old reality wasn't all that real. We are in a war. It's tyranny vs the People. We are running out of options and runway..
The criminalisation of ordinariness you allude to here seems to me a symptom of an underlying issue.
In my view the criminalisation of ordinariness is just the open expression of Davos sect’s deep contempt of the masses. This explains the deluge of globalist’s contempt for movements such as 'Make America Great Again', for Brexit and for the French “gilet jaunes” or Justin Trudeau's contempt for Canadian truckers, the Italian nationalist party and of course any openly nationalist political parties that are immediately labelled “neo-fascists” or “extreme right” (to discredit them and shut them up). This is a significant pattern...
This leads to the observation that globalists cannot stand anyone but them holding power. It is just a further expression of their rejection of democracy.
Globalists are in fact elitist Nietzschian Übermensch/Superman wannabes who no longer mask their contempt for ordinary people. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche openly (and brutally) expressed this view. (1886: section 61)
“And finally, to ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist,”
Yup, “ordinary people” are allowed to exist IF they serve the Übermensch’s interests. Nietzsche goes on to add (same sentence) that religion is a useful tool to the Übermensch as it conveniently shuts ordinary people up and makes them docile (1886: section 61)
“religion gives invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy, with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the semi-animal poverty of their souls.”
In Will to Power, books III et IV, Nietzsche adds (1901/1913):
“962. A great man, —a man whom Nature has built up and invented in a grand style, —What is such a man? First, in his general course of action his consistency is so broad that owing to its very breadth it can be surveyed only with difficulty, and consequently misleads; he possesses the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life, and of despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most beautiful and "divine" things of the world there may be among them. Secondly he is colder, harder, less cautious and more free from the fear of "public opinion"; he does not possess the virtues which are compatible with respectability and with being respected, nor any of those things which are counted among the "virtues of the herd." If he is unable to lead, he walks alone; he may then perchance grunt at many things which he meets on his way. Thirdly, he asks for no "compassionate" heart, but servants, instruments; in his dealings with men his one aim is to make something out of them. He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he thinks it bad taste to become familiar; and as a rule he is not familiar when people think he is. When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a mask [of hypocrisy - PG]. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and will. There is a loneliness within his heart which neither praise nor blame can reach, because he is his own judge from whom is no appeal.”
Doesn’t that describe people like Anthony Fauci, Justin Trudeau or Anthony Albanese??
Refs.
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Project Gutenberg)
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1901/1913) Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. vol. II. [Translator:, Anthony M. Ludovici] TN Foulis London xx-432 p.
I read this twice. The first time I was left with a feeling that I’d woken during the night, sleepwalked to my laptop and written it myself, so are the similarities in our experiences and perceptions of this completely farcical few years. Then I read it again and realised, sadly, that I lack the eloquence to write so clearly and succinctly. I feel as though I’m in a different orbit to most around me, seeing things from a different perspective, an outlier. I doubt I’ll ever again share the same orbit with most. And yes, thank god for dogs, they bring peace, joy and provide a conduit between worlds, an honest, faithful constant.
Gosh, I feel exactly the same and your reply has eloquently summed up the reply I wished to make. I am in tears. Grateful that there are others like us but also so, so sad at the loneliness and banality to endure. Love to you and all x
What Chicken Man said (except I have a cat)
You are not alone, I felt exactly the same and you too have expressed it beautifully.
I wonder how many outliers are in this orbit because you're certainly not alone. Existence in two worlds is work and I long for ordinary - peace and joy as you wrote. Honestly, the article and your reply brought tears to my eyes.
My thoughts, exactly.
There is something a bit 'off' about the return to the old normal. Everyone going about shopping at crowded markets, playing cricket, catching buses without donning the mask as in the old days - yet these are the same people who would willingly, apathetically or enthusiastically trade all this for state-directed 'safety' all over again. There has been no underlying coming-to-terms with the nonsense of the last three years.
After the ideological belligerence provoked by any attempt on my behalf at civil discourse questioning the Covid Narrative, I, too, chose silence when dealing with the True Believers, and I have kept it up even when friends, all fully perforated Covid Cult members, get to talking in mystified ways about their 'sudden' and unexplained health problems pursuant to whatever booster number we are up to.
There's a cricket match going on at the oval next to my house right now - I'm learning to really appreciate the sounds and rhythms of this delightful ordinariness as a reminder of the world I used to know.
I feel like Truman Burbank of The Truman Show. Unable to talk to anyone about the most important things.
It amazes me how subversive it is to try to discuss the last few years. I feel like my church deserted us but who can I say that too. People seem to have picked up life again but it is harder to connect or feel part of something.
I agree. It feels impossible
People just glaze over and blank you if offer any other view than the status quo. ie The government handled the "pandemic" wee, it saved lives, vaccines are great and save lives and all the discombobulation is imagined and not real. That it was ok to trash the economy etc.
Wow… When I read your article on Brownstone, I couldn’t believe how you were articulating EXACTLY how I feel, every single paragraph. Thanks for writing it.
When one lives through a Zeitgeist, as history has recorded, confusion is a common response while the known world frays and shrivels around us. Then, those who can, pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start all over again, trying to sift through the detritus and recreate their personal world, and, in the doing, help to recreate the world around them. Some, often many on the old 70/30 principle will not be able to do this and will just be carried along in the storm. That is why, it is so important that those who can see, as the writer describes, also work hard to do in the reconstruction of society.
In 18th- and 19th-century German philosophy, a Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ( listen)) ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent, force or Daemon dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history.
RE: Was it all an illusion in the first place?
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." Frank Zappa.
Prescient Zappa. The world has seen it all before, over and over, the same brand of charlatans with the same tricks, but still it works, people lap it all up oblivious to the risks. At this point, the scenery can be pulled back very, very quickly and reality exposed. I await the gasps of, ‘Good Lord, how did this happen, how did we get here!?’
Beautifully articulated. I got here from Brownstone, and I hope you are widely read there as this essay is a first step in repairing the schism between the worlds. It mirrors what so many are experiencing, what makes half the people, at the latest silenced horror, say they feel like they are in a Twilight Zone episode. And being mirrored allows us to know we are not going stark raving schizoid out of our minds!
It’s extremely important to realise that you are not alone and haven’t been from day 1 of all this nonsense. The writing of people like Richard and others (many I’ve discovered on substack and Brownstone) has been a great source of comfort. It’s not easy being an outlier, especially when there is an obvious, concerted, top-down effort to suppress and even silence dissent, or even slightly different views. I’m sure this was a deliberate tactic from very early on to attempt an illusion of almost complete consensus about the oppressive measures being inflicted on societies all over the world. it then becomes very easy for the orchestrators to create an in-group and out-group, which has been a classic strategy of authoritarian tyrants throughout history to divide society, and marginalise those that challenge their views. Always remember, you are not alone. You are free to speak your mind and by speaking up, you encourage others to do so and prevent the complete descent into tyranny.
Finally reading another person that gets it.
The worst part is that they will now board the new train that has pulled up to the platform, with all it's new carriages - `It's not the jab killing/maiming people', `we must stand with Ukraine', `identity politics' and more... all herded together with the `climate crisis' caboose on the end.
It feels like those that you have described are on their own fantasy land journey.
Hi Richard,
I LOVE this article - just as I loved your 'World A / World B' piece (it was yours, wasn't it?) from a few months back. In fact, I shared a longish excerpt from this latest one on my FB page, hoping that it might strike a chord with a few fellow members of The Resistance.
I then didn't go online for a couple of days, only to find that I had not just an encouraging response, but a HUGE number of 'likes', 'loves' and all sorts of comments (all of them positive), saying how much your words had resonated with them. If you want to have a look / read, it's the post I've now 'pinned' to the top of my page: https://www.facebook.com/jacktravel/
Anyhow, I just wanted to say thanks for articulating so eloquently and so simply what so many of us have been feeling. Despite the continuing and unfolding shitshow, it's both reassuring and empowering to know that we are far from alone.
Best wishes from Cumbria (UK),
Steve
The moon landings were faked... The elections are rigged.. They are poisoning and murdering us in our face. The old reality wasn't all that real. We are in a war. It's tyranny vs the People. We are running out of options and runway..
The criminalisation of ordinariness you allude to here seems to me a symptom of an underlying issue.
In my view the criminalisation of ordinariness is just the open expression of Davos sect’s deep contempt of the masses. This explains the deluge of globalist’s contempt for movements such as 'Make America Great Again', for Brexit and for the French “gilet jaunes” or Justin Trudeau's contempt for Canadian truckers, the Italian nationalist party and of course any openly nationalist political parties that are immediately labelled “neo-fascists” or “extreme right” (to discredit them and shut them up). This is a significant pattern...
This leads to the observation that globalists cannot stand anyone but them holding power. It is just a further expression of their rejection of democracy.
Globalists are in fact elitist Nietzschian Übermensch/Superman wannabes who no longer mask their contempt for ordinary people. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche openly (and brutally) expressed this view. (1886: section 61)
“And finally, to ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist,”
Yup, “ordinary people” are allowed to exist IF they serve the Übermensch’s interests. Nietzsche goes on to add (same sentence) that religion is a useful tool to the Übermensch as it conveniently shuts ordinary people up and makes them docile (1886: section 61)
“religion gives invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy, with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the semi-animal poverty of their souls.”
In Will to Power, books III et IV, Nietzsche adds (1901/1913):
“962. A great man, —a man whom Nature has built up and invented in a grand style, —What is such a man? First, in his general course of action his consistency is so broad that owing to its very breadth it can be surveyed only with difficulty, and consequently misleads; he possesses the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life, and of despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most beautiful and "divine" things of the world there may be among them. Secondly he is colder, harder, less cautious and more free from the fear of "public opinion"; he does not possess the virtues which are compatible with respectability and with being respected, nor any of those things which are counted among the "virtues of the herd." If he is unable to lead, he walks alone; he may then perchance grunt at many things which he meets on his way. Thirdly, he asks for no "compassionate" heart, but servants, instruments; in his dealings with men his one aim is to make something out of them. He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he thinks it bad taste to become familiar; and as a rule he is not familiar when people think he is. When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a mask [of hypocrisy - PG]. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and will. There is a loneliness within his heart which neither praise nor blame can reach, because he is his own judge from whom is no appeal.”
Doesn’t that describe people like Anthony Fauci, Justin Trudeau or Anthony Albanese??
Refs.
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Project Gutenberg)
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4363
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1901/1913) Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All Values. vol. II. [Translator:, Anthony M. Ludovici] TN Foulis London xx-432 p.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52915/pg52915-images.html