Hindsight Is... 2021 Edition

Since some really bad people decided to prolong the pandemic in the United States, the musings will continue until the pandemic ends. If you don't like it, blame them.

There's no such thing as a creative type. Just a kid who was broken and a kid who wasn't broken. To be able to dream means you haven't been completely broken. To be able to be creative, and that means in any field, including engineering and even accounting, means you haven't been completely broken. To be original and to think your own thoughts, to be able to do so even a little, means you haven't been broken. And a lot of people have been broken. But that's okay. Broken can be fixed.
Sometimes, hateful and misguided (or just plain evil) people will dump on you from all directions, telling you that you're wrong, and you're bad, and you're evil, and they can be 100% certain that they're in the right. Sometimes, they'll even try to persuade you, using everything in their toolbox including peer pressure, physical and emotional abuse, even psychic attacks and willing really hard for you to fail. In case you were wondering why you were having a run of bad luck that might actually be why; in overwhelming numbers lots of people willing the same thing can do that and QAnon (for instance) is doing exactly that. In overwhelming numbers or with overwhelming force, they can make it seem like you're crazy and they're in the right. But in your heart of hearts if you know the truth, they can't take that away from you. In fact if you know the truth then you win, because you aren't nuts like they are.
Clueless people will cause far more harm to innocent people than I ever thought possible, in a stupid effort to get rid of "evil." It's like that Beavis and Butthead episode where they try to kill a fly by wrecking their living room and then breaking the window, and then flies swarm through the open window.
The guys who have destroyed the world: MAGA, QAnon, antivaxxers, and antimaskers, don't understand what it's like to succeed aside from using power plays. It's "you're either with us or you're against us" and you have to really toe the line in the "with" camp because it's all about power, not unconditional love and loyalty. Zero forgiveness, even for their own. They don't 'get' compassion because they only have love for the people who are almost exactly like them in their echo chamber. They only understand survival; stay in the group so you survive; they don't understand unconditional love because they have no tolerance for mistakes or anything deviating from their supposed utopia. When it's all about power and power only, it blinds you to everything else, including humanity, love, mercy, and the truth. They don't 'get' collaboration, because they can't listen to anyone who is even slightly different from them, and they don't 'get' changes or adaptation. Well, you either bend or you break, and despite the usual lie that you can continue to break others and avoid 'bending' ie changing or adapting, it does not work that way.
On that note, another way of saying that survival of the fittest works, or that only the strong survive, is 'adapt or die.' It's an idea from Charles Darwin and if people don't like it maybe they shouldn't be saying they "trust their immune system" or other dumbass shit
The more resistance I get for my pro-vaxx, pro-protecting children ideas, the angrier I get and the less shits I give about the other side's moronic opinion. Also, the more I dig in my heels to do everything in my power to protect children. I was abused a lot as a child and I am calling it as I see it. Thankfully I now know I am no longer alone and more and more people are starting to feel this way, as the other side gets more and more extreme with their desire to infect innocents and kill them with a plague. Who gave them the right to harm children?!
Previous generations often had children as an insurance policy and free labor. Current generations often have children because they had accidents and now are using said children as sandbags for their own inadequacies. When will people learn that children should not be slaves to their guardians just because they are related to you and you technically "created" them with the easiest technique known to humankind?
There is a chance that what created the Baby Boomer mentality of entitlement, greed, narcissism, and ego was, believe it or not, sexism. The woman was supposed to stay in the house and be a slave to the man and the children. The man was supposed to be a slave master. The uneven power dynamic would have the woman overdoing it and spoiling everyone but herself. Also their parents had just fought in a war and lived through the Great Depression, no strangers to sacrifice, and sacrificed a lot for their children without regard for how much they may have been spoiling them. They also stuck together a lot in their times growing up, socializing with one another too much and reinforcing their narcissistic attitudes, and essentially raising one another where their parents didn't but doing it badly; Facebook has only added to the problem. Add a lot of Socialist policies including free or very cheap college, excellent wages, racism, draft dodging for bone spurs and "give peace a chance," Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, faking Christianity in order to eat at a free buffet on Sundays and get social support plus use God as a luck provider, unemployment benefits, Draconian laws allowing parents to use their children as slaves, tax breaks, and so on and so forth that has enabled them to dodge the consequences of their actions for decades, and they have only gotten worse and more entitled. Of course not all of them, but if you believe this applies to you and are now angry at me for saying this about "all Boomers," ok, boomer.
Healing the body requires knowledge of medicine. Healing the mind requires knowledge of psychiatry and psychology. But how do you heal the soul? I think there are several ways. Bardic ways, such as movies, art, all creative works, books, and music, help you understand what you need to know to get you through whatever your situation is, and sometimes that can work. Nature can heal the soul of some; religion or spirituality or philosophy can heal others. Stoicism in particular seems to help everyone regardless of faith or belief. Play, too, can heal. Generally speaking though what heals the soul is what reminds you why it's good to be alive, even if that's just one tiny thing. That tiny thing can, if you allow it to open your perceptions to more, eventually open up a world of possibilities so you actually enjoy life again and that is probably the best measure of spiritual health. It is however critical to remember to care for the soul and prioritize soul-caring because socially speaking our society just doesn't recognize it unless it's bogged down with outward trappings of conformity and "normal" stuff such as religion. We like to think soul-caring is one-size-fits-all. It is not. I guess the best way to care for your soul is to figure out what that means to you and to do it.
Wearing a mask under your nose, aka what I like to call 'nosemask' is like an unsolicited dick pic but somehow even more unappealing. It screams "I can't commit to anything, help, I need an adult," as well as "I'm probably lax on child support payments."
This is something I once posted on Twitter. It got me brigaded, reported, and blocked because... well, see for yourself. "Feminism is garbage. The fundamental issue with feminism is that it focuses purely on the plight of women [women plural, not the individual woman], assuming them to be a collective in thought and feeling, invariably projecting any single woman's ideals onto every other women. They do not think of women as single, individual beings. A woman who does not agree with them [feminists] is a whore, or a token, or some other slur used to dismiss them for going against the group, and the thought [the predominant groupthink of feminism at the time] continues. It [feminism] ignores or dismisses ANY possible alternative explanation, in terms of rationalizing whatever it is you're SUPPOSED to want [feminism programs you to want things that conform to the feminist party line of the day, and to explain why you want those things, and you can't deviate from any of that or you get shunned]. It ignores that you are not a set of traits, but a thinking, feeling individual with your own thoughts and experiences." And now, a couple years later and several super feminist texts by Z. Budapest read, respected, appreciated and digested? I am even more against feminism. Too much self-deception, too much groupthink, too many lies. Too much feel-good crap designed to get you to substitute feeling superior for cultivating genuine self-respect. Too much taking from toxic masculinity in order to make the exact same thing, but "it's female so it's better," meet the new boss same as the old boss, are you fucking kidding me? Too much tribalism masquerading as self-sufficiency, independence, and freedom. Here's a helpful hint for any philosophy. If you have to engage in doubletalk or doublethink to maintain it; if you have to constantly prop it up by persuading yourself it needs to be upheld; if your gut instinct tells you it's crap but everyone else keeps saying it's great; if you have to force yourself to stay with it by choking down things that seem right but aren't, let it go. Feminism disempowers women. You read that right, fucker.
If you are racist or any other flavor of -ist that doesn't involve anything you have actually done yourself, you are a meritless, talentless hack without a single shred of self-worth. There might as well just be a clone of you in your place without any of your memories if that's what you value yourself on - external bullshit. Racists and other -ists only value their shells, their mannequins that look like them, talk like them, and conform to social norms, but they are not original and at that point are you really nothing more than a walking billboard? Anything more substantial than that guy in American Psycho? Oh yeah, it's hip to be square. Fucking enjoy.
The heart of the far-left's belief system: "You are not worthy of anything unless you suffer." The heart of the far-right's belief system: "You are not worthy of anything unless you are just like us, which usually involves making other people suffer." Oooookay then.

Hindsights for 2022

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