Between the ages of 6 and 9, a child begins to build his own inner world. (It can also be called subjectivity or the subconscious). Before that, he shares Mom’s.

During this time, children become secretive and start telling what adults perceive as lies. I’m not talking about imaginative inventions which appear as soon as a child begins to speak. I mean actual, purposeful lies. And this is a great thing.

Parents today aren’t too busy if you look at it from a historical perspective. Nobody has 11 kids and has to work in the fields all day. So people have a lot more energy and time to dedicate to formatting the children. Out of very good intentions, they start trying to eradicate the lies because they believe it’s their duty to raise an honest person.

As a result – and again, from very good and loving intentions – parents crash into this very new and still very tiny inner world that the child has created and start trying to manage it. The child ends up perceiving his inner life as a dangerous place. A place where he can never be left alone without being punished, humiliated and ordered about.

Such children grow up to be high-anxiety people. They develop ADHD and similar disorders. They have no idea what it even means to find refuge and comfort in their own thoughts, their own mind, their own inner lives. They’ll get addicted to screens because that helps to avoid being alone with their thoughts.

Every age of human development has its own goals. Learning to be honest is not the developmental goal for this crucial stretch between 6 and 9.

People who say “my child is 9 and has never lied to me” are either clueless (which is good) or tend to hover way too much (which is not good). I suggest getting a hobby and leave the kid be to develop freely and normally. As for inculcating honesty, instead of formatting the child, work on yourself. Become an honest person and teach by example.

Russian nationalist guerrillas are shelling the town of Shebekino in Russia. The regular Russian army has had to divert troops from the frontline with Ukraine and send them to defend Shebekino.

It’s an absolute genius strategy to use Russian nationalists to weaken the regular Russian forces as the Ukrainian offensive is unfolding.

Yet again, I’m stunned at the incredible historical development of Russian nationalists fighting to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty from Russia. When everything fails, you can count on nationalists to do the right thing. Even when it’s very hard.

I cleaned out my email inbox, and now all I have is a long list of old emails from my father. I can’t delete or move them so now my inbox makes me sad.

Now online dupes are saying that Mexican drug cartels use the weapons sent to Ukraine by the US and use as evidence a news clip in Spanish that says absolutely nothing of the kind.

People willingly put themselves into a linguistic and informational ghetto and don’t understand that this makes them easy to manipulate.

It’s like that press conference where the president of Mexico supposedly said that he agreed to merge his country with the US and Canada. Obviously, he said nothing like it. Only people who have zero knowledge of what Mexico is and can’t speak Spanish would buy such a silly lie but many simpletons did.

Russians are so happy that their oligarchs were drone-attacked by mysterious forces that one almost wishes it hadn’t happened. Propagandists are begging them to stop celebrating because it’s a bad look.

It looks like if the US promised to catch every Russian oligarch and rape him with a broom in the Red Square, every Russian soldier would lay down the arms immediately.

After yesterday’s drone attack on the oligarchs in Moscow, the residents of Kyiv had a good night’s sleep for the first time in weeks. Whoever organized the drone attack (and I’m thinking it’s got to be the Russian nationalist guerrillas), it worked.

A large drone attack in Moscow today targeted the area where rich people live:

I wonder if it’s time for another socialist revolution in Russia.

Human beings are defined by the future much more even than by the past. If you have a clear image of an exciting, desirable future, you’ll be a much happier person today. It works in reverse, too. If you have no vision for a joy-filled future, you will be a sadder, less effective, less energetic person today.

Kevin Williamson traveled to Kyiv and wrote about it:

The Russians are big on blowing up hospitals, because they are cruel and cowardly and wrong, with an almost comical commitment to practically melodramatic villainy—murdering and torturing and such, and kidnapping, according to rough estimate, almost one-tenth of the children in Ukraine, deporting them to Russia as part of their program of utterly obliterating every aspect of Ukrainian national identity. This isn’t the first Russification campaign in Russian history—the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union tried the same thing, with peoples ranging from the Ukrainians to the Finns to the Azeris. The Russian goals stay the same, but the techniques evolve.

https://thedispatch.com/newsletter/wanderland/the-burial-of-the-dead/

It’s not possible to be a good person and not be for Ukraine.

It’s a long article but please read to the end.

I want to add this. Those who go to Ukraine or become connected in any way are changed forever. They get plugged into a source of energy and light up like Christmas trees. It’s not a pitiful, tragic place. It’s an energy portal. You suddenly become who you always wanted to be and stare at the mirror trying to figure out what’s happened.

We can’t understand why this burst of energy is being given to the world, why now, why there, and why in such a way. But it’s very real. It’s like a station was opened where you can go and get wings. Many people are missing it because they can’t lift their eyes from the ground, and I’m sad for them. But there’s nothing you can do for those who have opportunities thrown at them and they prefer not to notice.

We could have had this guy instead of the impotent, useless Obama:

We’d be living in a different world now. What a massive mistake. We let ourselves be duped by a speechifying fraud, and now look what happened.

People keep complaining about Trump but he created no disasters compared to Clinton, Bush II and Obama. He didn’t deliver on his promises but he didn’t ship our manufacturing overseas, turn China into a problem, start any wars, invade any countries, or let Russia start a war in Europe. Trump did nothing but tweet. Which isn’t optimal but a massive improvement on the preceding 3 fellas.

Biden is also very reactive but he’s controlling the nutso wing of his party a lot more effectively than Trump controls his. Last summer, the AOC faction wrote a petition to withdraw aid from Ukraine. Biden had them take it back within days, and they stayed on point since then. No riots, no public lunacy. Trump, on the other hand, has zero control over his loons.

I’m not partisan, folks. Political partisanship is a sign of an inferior intellect.

To resume: we’ve had a large improvement in the quality of our leadership since 2016. Both Trump and Biden turned out a lot better than anybody could have expected. Neither did much, but they didn’t spoil anything that wasn’t already broken. Biden now has a slight advantage because of the effectiveness of his control over the mentally unwell fringe of his party.