Opinions, art, debate
So Pizzagate was real this entire time?
I spent years mocking it but it seems like the joke is on me. Unless Epstein was obsessed with “pizza and grape soda” to an extreme degree and surrounded himself by a crowd of similar obsessives, pizza has to be code for something. Given that rich people don’t eat pizza, let alone drink grape soda, it’s starting to look like the Pizzagate people aren’t that crazy.
This is why mass deportations in the US failed. This is why a Spanish politician can openly scream on stage that Spanish people must get replaced and receive no pushback. That’s why daily news of third-worlders killing, assaulting and raping Westerners are greeted with indifference at worst and meaningless social media outrage at best. Western people think that occupation is better than war. They believe that resisting makes them bad.
There was a chance for mass deportations here in the US. It was decisively rejected by the population. People prefer occupation to war.
The vet says the cat is probably much older than the shelter told us. She says, probably around 7. I don’t blame the shelter because they probably think nobody will want to adopt an older cat. We love her anyway, so it’s fine.
I kind of knew she had to be older than three based on her size but I don’t know from cats so I didn’t trust my instinct. The cat seemed traumatized by the visit to the vet. She must have thought we were going to abandon her there. When we came back home, she followed me around like a shadow, mewling desperately whenever I’d disappear from view. It took hours to reassure her.
Elon Musk is the only person outside of Ukraine who is genuinely helping in a big way:
This is very impressive because he really doesn’t have to.
Oh. So there really are people typing up a storm on the other end.
We voted 3 times today at the faculty senate. Twice mine was the only voice that said “nay.” Loudly. The third time, I was joined by one other voice.
The upside is that I voted my conscience and that’s always good. The downside is that every time this happens, people want to become my friend. And I have even less time for that now because my cat expects me to play with her every evening. Today she chased me off my bed when I tried to abbreviate my playing duties.
This is the weirdest commercial. The company is openly saying that they no longer make cool cars.
“See this incredibly cool car? Well, you can’t get it. We don’t make it anymore!”
I really thought they’d reveal something cool at the end.
Losers.
At a soporific faculty meeting, I was granted an unexpected pleasure of sitting next to an extremely entertaining professor from India who told the most hilarious stories about “all those fucking nice white liberal ladies with their fucking DEI”. I don’t know how he knew that I’m a nice white lady who is not liberal but it means he’s good at his profession because his field requires that you should know how to read people.
I haven’t had this much fun at work since…. I don’t even remember since when.
These guys with body counts treat women like toilets, and women treat them like toilets in return. Then both sides pout at each other because everybody wants to feel extremely special but can’t be assed to be decent to other people.
These are all stories from the world that no longer exists. These “tiger” parents are preparing their children for a long-gone economy. I don’t care if they are Chinese, American, or Alpha Centauri. They are behind the times. They have already lost.
The world that currently exists requires internal motivation. The disciplinarian society is gone. We can debate if that’s good or bad but the fact is, it’s now an anachronism. These tiger moms are chasing a dead dragon.
Everything today is about inner motivation. You have to have the fire inside for whatever it is you do. There’s no demand for obedient, quiet drones. You need to have a very strong sense of self. We are in the economy of selfhood.
I spent all evening yesterday telling my kid to be done with the studying already and just go and play. She refused and at bedtime showed me a timesheet of her own design where she recorded how much time she had spent on each field of study. This is not assigned at school. I have never asked her to do this. I have never asked her to study at all. I’m not doing anything to foster it. But I do intuitively know how to raise for inner motivation. You do it by pursuing the exact opposite strategy from tiger-momming.
We live in an extremely permissive, self-indulgent society. Maybe I wish it were less so. But it won’t be. The boundary between happiness and unhappiness in such a society lies inside everybody individually. You need to build an inner caparace for your fire and police its boundaries maniacally in order not to spill like a puddle of grey misery. Everybody will have to do it for themselves or they are majorly screwed. As a parent, you need to foster inner strength, not break it.
Clarissa's Blog 