Russians have a naturally downward-trending affect, so they exaggerated the West’s imperfections, got angry over the perceived betrayal of finding out there is no paradise on Earth, and decided to be the anti-West.

Ukrainians, who have an upward-trending affect, chose their favorite coping strategy of being in denial, and spent the last 30 years pretending the perfect West they had imagined in the Soviet times is real. They are as offended when you mention any problems in the West as Russians are when you mention anything good about the West.

I watched in horror how, during the NATO summit in Vilnius last summer, pretty much everybody in Ukraine was absolutely convinced that Biden was going to extend an invitation to NATO membership to Ukraine. When it predictably didn’t happen, people were devastated. Trying to explain to them that Americans are living in a state of deep, unprocessed trauma over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that they (fairly in one case and unfairly in the other) perceive as humiliating, unnecessary catastrophes provoked the stunned shock of a toddler told that Santa isn’t real.

As a result, the very real and concerns of many Americans about the “forever wars”, border troubles, inflation, deindustrialization, etc. aren’t addressed at all. It’s so inconceivable, in this worldview, that Americans can be preoccupied with their own problems that their being distracted from Ukraine is explained as Russian propaganda. I have lost count of how many times I have had to say “this isn’t about you. There are things going on here that are not about you”.

There’s yet another factor in this that I’ll discuss in the next post.

I was asked yesterday what Ukraine has been doing wrong in its foreign policy. The question wasn’t asked in good faith but I still want to write about it because there’s a lesson here that is useful to all of us in our lives. People hate long posts, so I’ll publish this in parts.

We often engage with people as if they only exist during our interactions with them. We perceive everything they do or say as being about us when there might be a million unrelated things happening to them. It’s a good idea to remind ourselves that if somebody is being irritable, disengaged or rude, it’s probably not about us at all. That person has a million things going on that have nothing to do with us.

Ukrainians on all levels have found it hard to see their Western allies as countries with the exact same complexity, history, internal concerns and burning-hot arguments as themselves. The West, for them, is this perfect place where everything is perfect and everybody marinates in this perfection briefly coming out of this perfect stupor to condemn Russia and support Ukraine. Yes, it’s the bloody Barbieland.

This attitude is, of course, part of the Soviet legacy. We lived behind the Iron Curtain and, for lack of any actual knowledge, imagined utter bliss on the other side. When the Iron Curtain fell, one could finally see reality. The West is great but it’s complicated and contradictory, it has problems, people argue, sometimes they suffer, sometimes things are unfair. I’m in love precisely with this complexity that produces enormously better results than monolithic authoritarianisms.

The reaction to this realization was disparate in different parts of the former USSR. This disparate reaction is a lot more responsible for the current war against Ukraine than any fairy tales about “the NATO expansion”. I’ll explain how in the next post.

Good news! If you exclude everything people need to live, there is no inflation!

Economists are truly the dumbest bastards.

Remember when Trump tried to institute a travel ban for travelers from some Muslim countries? All of my Jewish colleagues went to protest at the airport. (Please don’t ask why the airport, especially since we are not exactly a hub for international travel). Curiously, none of them went to the airport to protest when the travel ban was extended to all of us but that’s another matter.

I wonder if all those Muslim travelers who came over after the Trump travel ban was removed are walking out in support of the Jews today.

No, I kind of really don’t.

My point, once again, is that it might be a good idea to check if the group you try to mooch pity points off really wants you. Because it probably doesn’t.

Somebody said today that I’m Ukrainian first and Jewish* a very distant second. This is strange, he said, given how close I was with my Jewish father and how distant with my Ukrainian mother.

Thing is, though, my Jewish father was also always much more Ukrainian than Jewish. He was definitely tons more Ukrainian than my mother. So this argument doesn’t work.

The actual reason is that you can’t unilaterally appoint yourself a member of a group. Yes, some men declare themselves women and tower over female competitors on a podium where they get their fake awards. But normal people don’t do that. They don’t go where they aren’t wanted. And I’m mostly normal.

As a kid, I never had a Ukrainian friend stop asking me over because she discovered I was half-Jewish. I never had Ukrainian relatives use anti-semitic slurs around me. I never had to justify my appearance to Ukrainian acquaintances. Nobody ever said I’m not a real Ukrainian because of my Dad. But I did have all these experiences over being half-Ukrainian with Jewish friends, relatives, colleagues. I get it, it’s fine. I look Jewish like Megan Markle looks black. If you stare really hard and also squint a little, you can definitely see something.

The point I’m making is that it’s stupid to inflict yourself on a group that doesn’t want you even if you have legitimate claims to belonging. It’s gigantically more stupid to do it when you’ve got none.

* I’m talking about being Jewish purely in terms of ethnicity. And yes, that’s a real thing that shows up on DNA tests.

The shock many Jews feel today when much of the Left pissed in their faces after the horrific terror attack on Israel is exactly what we Ukrainians felt when much of the Right abandoned us and became Putin’s little bitches.

How can anybody expect Zareena to understand that saying the things that brought applause and success until five minutes ago is suddenly… bringing less applause and success?

Zareena built a massively successful career out of these proclamations. I’m not justifying her. I’m suggesting that we look at how the vogue for this “edgy”, pouty crap started and who nourished it.

Some of the best things are counterintuitive. Who could have thought that the cure for my life-long low energy in the mornings would consist of waking up while it was still dark outside?

I always thought I was miserable in the mornings because I’m a late sleeper and hate waking up. But it turns out that… I don’t even know what it turns out except that somehow waking up before sunrise has cured me.

I thrive in the absence of sunlight.

One thing that I’ve noticed about language instructors we get from Muslim countries is that they are all princesses. They behave like giggly, adorable, spoiled 5-year-olds. One doesn’t know how to react because one doesn’t want to hurt their feelings but neither can one babysit them like they expect. For reasons of my personal psychology, I react badly to childish adults, so it’s a sore trial for me every time.

Obviously, nobody ever offers us male instructors of Arabic so I don’t know how they are.

Once again, we have the inane posturing about how “we shouldn’t send US troops to fight in Israel”.

Folks, based on how successful the American troops have been in the past 70 years, nobody wants them showing up to help. In fact, I’m sure we could probably get people pay good amounts of money to have US troops abstain from helping.

If you disagree, I invite you to re-watch the footage of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. I hear Putin watches it a couple of times a week just to have a good laugh. And how could you blame him?

These endless fantasies about how massively sought after the US troops are around the world remind me of the BLM activists who similarly are convinced that everybody wants to touch their hair. They fret about it constantly and it’s embarrassing because nobody has any interest in their hair.