There’s a screed making rounds on social media by a childless woman who says it’s great to have no children at 37 because you can sleep in every day and leave the house at a moment’s notice whenever you want.

What struck me in this statement isn’t the issue of childlessness. I didn’t have a living child at 37 either. But I couldn’t sleep in every day and go wherever the fancy struck me because I had a job. Don’t people without small children usually have jobs? Who is that person who sleeps late every day at the age of 37? Don’t you have things to do? OK, so you don’t have children but you’ve got to have something. Where is it that you can even go at a moment’s notice? Shopping? With what money if you don’t have a job?

It’s really weird that people who are not at all young have these strange fantasies of life filled with doing nothing. Not being able to hang around aimlessly and not following your whims because you have responsibilities is normal. And it’s not in the least unpleasant. It doesn’t bother me that I have to go to my job every day and that I can’t leave the office until the workday is over. Or that I have to get up early to pack Klara’s lunch box and make her breakfast. I love it.

Not having a life structured by routines arising from responsibilities leads to depression and anxiety. There’s no doubt that the author of the screed is on some form of psych meds. Not because she’s childless but because her understanding of happiness is the opposite of what makes humans happy. “I need to be free from everything that constitutes life” leads to dark places. People have been sold the fantasy that aimless, shiftless, uprooted existences are the ultimate in joy but when they engineer such lives for themselves, the joy doesn’t come. And it’s not surprising.

Tomorrow we’ll have record cold weather for this time of year in our region. I mean, it will be +25°C, so still hot but for the last day of August around here it’s about 20 degrees Celsius lower than we usually get.

I’ve never seen so much summertime outside as I have this year. Leaves and grass haven’t burned out like they always do, so it actually looks pretty.

I’m watching the TV series “Dahmer” but even that has been BLMed into the infinity.

A person can’t even watch a nice, escapist show about a cannibalistic serial killer without being subjected to strings of slogans.

In the breaks between the preaching about systemic whatsits and a bizarre portrayal of race relations, it’s actually a good show. The actors playing Dahmer and his Dad are superb. Scenography is perfect. Props are spot on. You go straight back to the nineties in some scenes. The lighting is done exceptionally well. The editing and the time jumps aren’t always justified but I guess it’s done to soothe the impatient viewers. And to make space to bring in the BLM preaching.

I told my Ukrainian instructor that the Ukrainians I meet today are the polar opposite of the Ukrainians I left in 1998. They are so enthusiastic, resourceful, self-reliant and just plain happy that I never thought it would be possible to effectuate such a change within a single lifetime.

It’s becoming very clear why Russians who didn’t change in this positive direction are so angry. They want to destroy what they can’t themselves be to avoid seeing daily reminders that a different kind of life is possible.

Participating in online events with Ukrainians who are in Ukraine (and usually in very harsh circumstances) is like being plugged into an energy source. People are luminous with a sense of purpose. I can’t support them emotionally because they are so full of life power that I invariably become a recipient of support. I talked to this older guy who escaped from Donetsk in 2014 and then from Bucha in 2022. You’ve heard about Bucha. This is a guy who’s seen terrible things. And he’s not only not crushed by it all but he radiates strength, capacity and purposefulness. A man in his late fifties, with a very middle-aged physique, soft-spoken and kind of shy but there’s such strength and tranquility at his core that it’s mesmerizing.

Gosh, I remember young people in the peaceful nineties who were so pathetic, miserable and incapable of using any opportunities that came their way. And then they were all transformed.

I asked the Ukrainian instructor how it happened, and she says this is the power of nationalism. People discovered their national consciousness, and it lit them up from inside.

I would never believe it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.

My native city of Kharkiv is right on the border with Russia. Russian missiles can reach it in under a minute, and it’s been suffering constant shelling.

But as the school year approaches, Kharkovites are dedicated to sending their children to school in person. Dozens of classes were built in the large, spacious subway stations of the city. Children deserve not to be stuck in front of screens and have that be called “education”.

I went out with my Ukrainian instructor yesterday. When I told her about COVID lockdowns, she laughed gently. “That wouldn’t work with Ukrainians,” she said. “Nobody tells us what we can do.”

I keep wondering why we locked our kids up to stare at screens and unravel mentally over the sniffles while other people are trying to organize real education for their kids under bomb raids.

The subway classrooms will be finished in time for the first day of class on September 1st. Knowing Russians, they’ll probably do a particularly massive air raid on that day. In the most recent Russian air raids, Ukrainian anti-missile forces take down 99% of the missiles before they reach their target.

What I always wonder is what happened to people who loudly advocated some conspiracy theory and left in a huff when I made fun of it? Like those folks who read too much Glenn Greenwald and were certain there was no war in Ukraine because something, something, old photos, Zelensky in uniform, something, something. Now that it’s clear there is, in fact, a war, why don’t they grow a pair, come back and say, “hey, turns out I was wrong. I trusted bad sources and got caught, sorry”?

I enjoy saying “I was wrong”. To me people who want to pretend that they are infallible know-it-alls are a mystery. Don’t they understand how sad and childish they look?

In the first 8 days of the semester, the students have behaved about a million times more maturely, responsibly and seriously than professors.

I honestly have to say that never in my career have I seen such amounts of poutiness, eccentricity boarding on anti-sociality, fussiness about non-existent health dangers and outright weirdness among colleagues.

I go into the classroom to take a break from the childishness with 18-year-olds who actually want to work.

Yeah, I also hate it how Biden let BLM rioters run rampant through the streets for months, looting, bullying, robbing and destroying. That woke bastard.

Pope Francis said there is a “very strong, organized, reactionary attitude” in the U.S. Catholic church, that is “backwards” and has led the church to replace faith with “ideology,” according to a new transcript of the comments released Monday. . . “I want to remind these people that backwardness is useless, and they must understand that there’s a correct evolution in the understanding of questions of faith and morals,” he said. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pope-francis-says-reactionary-u-s-catholic-church-has-replaced-faith-with-ideology/

Erm… OK. “A correct evolution in church doctrine” is an interesting concept. I say “interesting” to avoid being disrespectful. If it weren’t the Pope speaking, I’d say it’s ignorant to the point of childishness.

The Pope also decided it’s a great idea to praise the more genocidal among the Russian emperors and chirp excitedly about “The great Russian culture”.

The Catholic Church will survive this individual but, in the meantime, my greatest condolences to go to our Catholic friends.

The precarious existence of late modernity is truly tragic. Its foundational myths are promoted by the cultural industry as a liberating opportunity for a nomadic individual who is

a) a citizen of the world (that is, deprived of any real citizenship),

b) can live anywhere (that is, is deprived of a real home),

c) not rooted anywhere (that is, deprived of a chance to take root),

d) free from “oppressive” family bonds (i.e., lacking in resources to form a family),

e) has an open mind (that is, lacks his own cultural identity and, therefore, “is open” to all those ideas that the consumer system will want to impose on him).

Diego Fusaro, The New Erotic Order