“Mommy, yesterday at school we learned about hetero… hetero… something and homo-something. It was so much fun!”
Turns out they learned about heterogenous and homogenous substances.
When you come face to face with a true work of art, it’s a feeling like none other. I love my profession because I can dedicate much of my time to looking for art, experiencing art, thinking about it, and telling others about what I find. Sometimes I become a conduit through which other people find their way to great art. It’s an incredible feeling.
I had a bitch of a day. My winter course was canceled because we no longer have anybody to defend our courses since I’m not department chair anymore. I was counting on the money, but now that’s gone. A colleague acted like a total piece of shit. I had to get tested for H. pylori, which meant I had to abstain from drinking any liquids for 4 hours, which, in this heat, is very unpleasant. We are doing DIY home repairs, and the house is a mess. My mother threw a fit at me.
But then I started reading a new book, and it’s a work of art. A soul-shaking, gut-piercing work of art. And all of the small daily annoyances fall away. Because what do they matter when there are great books in the world?
That sounds cute, but this position does not lead to a good relationship between adults. It leads to a great parent-child relationship. With your child, you absolutely are the donor, emotionally, intellectually, financially, and in every other way. Parenthood is a pay-it-forward situation. You give to the child and feel joy because of the giving. And then the child will do the same for her own children, and so on.
But if you’re hoping for a relationship with another adult, be it romantic or a friendship, it is a big mistake to position yourself from the get-go as a donor who enters the relationship to bestow the munificence of your plenitude.
The best romantic relationships are complementary. They begin from humility and honesty. Without humility, a relationship is doomed. The woman in the quoted post isn’t really looking for a partner. She’s looking for an audience for whose benefit she can enact the spectacle of her perfection. But even the most talented actress needs to step off the stage every once in a while.
People say these things because they have become some sort of accepted wisdom these days. The idea is that you need to become completely self-sufficient before looking for a husband or a wife. But once you have turned yourself into a closed circuit of self-sufficiency, you ensure that there is no place for another person in this closed circuit. Self-sufficiency is a myth, anyway. People need each other. A time will always come when you run into health issues, emotional issues, financial trouble, etc. If you have created in your partner unreasonable expectations of always being able to give, give, give and ask for nothing in return, then they will understandably expect this arrangement to carry on forever.
The way out of this unhealthy dynamic is to be honest with yourself and others. Accept that you’re human and that, of course, you need things from other people. Of course, there are things in yourself that you lack, and that’s not a bad thing. It is the most normal thing imaginable.
People brainwash themselves with these superficial slogans about self-sufficiency, and they never have happy personal lives or friendships.
There is a small Canadian company that regularly brings all of its employees on all-expenses-paid trips to beautiful overseas locations. You get to stay at a villa with a swimming pool, your own bedroom, your own bathroom, and you don’t get to spend a dime. On top of getting all of the expenses covered by the company, you get paid as if you were on a regular workday. It’s a dream job.
This year, the company retreat is in Greece. Everybody is going except for one male Canadian worker. He isn’t going because his wife doesn’t allow him. She doesn’t like it when he’s away from her.
Bonus points for guessing which country the wife is from. But the point is that this is a male employee. Female employees are all going. The patriarchy has truly been vanquished, but not in a good way.
JUST IN: Toys “R” Us announces its biggest expansion in nearly a decade, opening 120 stores across the U.S. as toy sales surge among adult shoppers.
There are little colorful unicorn toys that my kid likes. She plays out long, complicated scenarios with them. The problem is that the unicorns are extremely overpriced. It says on the box that they are not toys but “collectible items.” They are very specifically aimed at adults. Every time we see them at the store, my daughter asks me why on earth an adult would want what is clearly a child’s toy.
There are also the sad dolls. These are very expensive and often very realistic dolls with sad, depressed, or weeping countenances. They are also aimed at adults. The adult section of every toy store is expanding dramatically. Often, it makes the toy stores or the areas of bookstores reserved for children practically unusable for actual children. These adult items are often branded with swear words. Being in a children’s section of a bookstore with a child has become an exercise in maneuvering in such a way that the child doesn’t see the inappropriate adult-themed stuff.
Come to think of it, what are Lindsey Clancy conspiracies or maroon sweatshirt obsessives, if not an imitation of children’s imaginative play? What does the support for Clancy indicate, if not resentment against children who are not letting adults pose as children?
Lindsay Clancy enthusiasts on TikTok are now advancing the theory that Patrick Clancy is the nanny who worked for the family. They conduct facial measurements and run simulations of how his face would look with makeup. Democracy is dead because it has been eaten by self-indulgence. The regime change already happened. It didn’t happen in the direction Yarvin wants but it is very real. In this new regime, you promise the self-indulgent, narcissistic morons free grocery stores and free “dividends”, flatter their sore egos, and that will be enough.
There is no reality any longer. Reality is whatever one feels it should be. That’s the new regime.
At the hospital, my mother behaves very normally and exactly like her regular self. The doctors are so confused by her normal state that they sent her in for a CAT scan of the brain to see if she has a brain tumor.
They could have saved a bunch of money if they’d asked me. I would have informed them that she’s been exactly like this for as long as I’ve known her.
People drive me nuts with endless repetitions of, “it’s because she’s sick she’s behaving like this. Illness changes you.” Yeah, ok, whatever, geniuses. It didn’t change her. Welcome to my world.
It annoys me when divorced people refer to themselves as single mother/father. We need a way to distinguish between people who are actually raising their children alone (i.e., real single parents) and co-parenting divorcees. “A single father” who takes his kids out every other Sunday is not the same as an actual single father, raising the children alone.
There’s this guy at work who markets himself as “a single father of five”, and everyone feels compassionate, letting him slide on many of his obligations. Then it turns out that the kids haven’t lived with him since the divorce. I’m overjoyed to be able to help anybody raising a child on their own because it’s extremely hard. But I don’t want to be milked for compassion under false pretenses.
As a naturalized US citizen, I am very certain that nobody ever asked me to “commit to the idea” during the naturalization process. Moreover, nobody ever mentioned “the idea” and I don’t know what it is. I have a strong suspicion that if one were to poll 100 random Americans about “the idea”, we’ll get 6 different answers and 94 confused stares.
I also believe that people who talk about “the idea” and “a propositional nation” are clinical choo-choos.
I’m back stateside. Saw diesel prices on the way home. Couldn’t figure out what those numbers were at first. I was only away for a week, so the change didn’t track.
I guess that’s it for the midterms then. It was good while it lasted.
Let’s hope that one day we’ll see a Republican president who will choose to forget the words “Middle East.” In the meantime, let’s buckle up for Woke 2.0.
A conservative literary critic and college professor
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