Forget visiting the White House. The other day, Zelensky visited Bakhmut. It’s the most infernal place in the war. Russians have been storming it for weeks. Rubble, piles of corpses, and ongoing hostilities with Russian troops a couple of miles away – and still Zelensky went.

Russians had just declared the capture of Bakhmut, and then Zelensky showed up in the supposedly captured city. So they had to scramble to declare that they never intended to fight for Bakhmut anyway.

During the visit, Zelensky stood in the midst of dozens of heavily armed soldiers. Any one of them could have been upset, traumatized, shell-shocked, supportive of Zelensky’s electoral opponent* – and decided to take a shot. But they weren’t asked to disarm in view of the president’s visit. The right to bear arms is so sacred right now in Ukraine that it would not have been possible.

Imagine the balls one needs to do something like this. Also, imagine how far safe spaces, hurt feelings, and trigger warnings are from the reality I describe.

The crisis of masculinity is over, my friends. Manliness is back, safetyism is out.

* In case people are completely clueless, Zelensky’s electoral opponent is more anti-Russia than Zelensky. There are no pro-Russia political figures or voting blocs. Zelensky supporters bicker with Poroshenko supporters about who hates Russia more.

Slavoj Zizek said that (ex)-Communists like the Chinese or the Russians make such good neoliberals because they were brought up to hate the bourgeoisie (meaning, the middle-class), and neoliberalism allows them to wage war against this despised class.

Today, three minutes before having to rush out to Klara’s school, I discovered that the Christmas gift we are bringing to her school party should be wrapped and not placed in a gift bag. And I’m a really bad wrapper of gifts.

Fifteen years ago, I’d freak out. Ten years ago I’d get massively annoyed. But now I’m too old for all that. Being an old mother definitely has it’s positives. I’m so even-tempered and laid back, it’s amazing. There are simply no emotions left for small annoyances at this age.

While some people feel unsafe, engage in weaselly “quiet quitting” and suffer from anxiety, others figure things out.

Let’s draw inspiration from this teacher and get things done.