Clarissa's Blog

The trends in domestic migration between states seem to lead to an inevitable conclusion…

Vote red to avoid ending up in the red.

At a restaurant today, the TV was on over the bar. I have no idea what was being said but the images were of Trump, Trump, and more Trump. The channel was the CNN. I catch glimpses of the CNN in public places at different times of day, and it’s always Trump. Day, evening, weekend. The same images playing on a loop.

Is there truly nothing more relevant happening in the world than somebody who hasn’t held public office in 1,5 years? I liked the Trump presidency. I voted for him. But I don’t spend my days thinking about him and behaving like a lovestruck groupie. And I definitely feel no need to look at photos of him every day. Or any day.

If the CNN shows these programs, I assume there are people who watch. My question is, do they realize that this is unhealthy? The only person I can imagine myself being so obsessed with is my daughter. Why are they so attached to him? Is he a father figure? The Jungian shadow? Their one true love?

The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world. . . They are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or die—to bear witness—for its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it. . . It is the vision of Man without God.

It is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man’s liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man’s destiny and reorganizing man’s life and the world.

“Letter to My Children,” Whittaker Chambers.

This was written by Whittaker Chambers, the chief witness in the trial of the Soviet spy Alger Hiss. (And let me tell you, I was stunned to discover that there are still simple-minded folks who don’t think Hiss was a Soviet spy which is something that’s completely obvious to any Soviet person.)

Chambers’ “they” are Communists but the quote works beautifully to describe those whom today we call “the woke.” They act with the same hubris of godlike beings who believe themselves entitled to establishing a new natural order. They want to be the Logos and possess the power of creation.

Chambers says (or, rather, said back in 1959) that they are bound to be disappointed in the impotence of their efforts to remake creation. Then, he says, they might choose to destroy everything they see around them.

It’s all true, including the religious fervor of their single-minded fanaticism.

Oye new top administrator wants to move the graduation rate from 60% to 90%. He told us we need to achieve this feat in a year. No suggestion about introducing admission requirements was made, which means that the plan is untenable.

In a state of panic, some subservient minds have come up with a plan. They’ll pair students who are taking a certain course with those who already passed it. Then they’ll pay those who passed to “help” the new students. Get it? Hand your tests and quizzes over to a new generation of students, and the university will pay you to do it.

This isn’t as funny though, as when the chief administrator compared out graduation rates with those of an Ivy League school and then spent the next 5 minutes repeating, “But why? Why are their graduation rates so much higher than ours? Does anybody know?”

People have been so brainwashed that I believe many of them sincerely don’t know.

Valery, a Ukrainian farmer near Kyiv, reclaimed the plot of land where a Russian tank has died. He planted a vegetable patch around the tank and is using its body for a compost pit:

Note a little flower bed by the side of the turret.

I hope this inspires all of us to start the week well. If Valery can, so can we.

The talk about how “we need to find a way to get along peacefully with Russia” reminds me of a female friend who fell in love with a gay man and hounded him for 4 years trying to persuade him to become her boyfriend. (True story).

The gay man explained in every possible way that he wasn’t seeking a relationship with a woman because he was gay. Which is why, the man said, he was trying to meet guys and most certainly not trying to meet women. His explanations fell on deaf ears because she wanted a relationship with him.

Want to guess how the story ended?

She had to give up. Because he didn’t want a relationship. You can’t unilaterally get along. If the other party doesn’t want a relationship with you, there won’t be a relationship.

At the airport I saw a TV and discovered that some extraordinarily strange people are still watching those “January 6 hearings.” Or TV programs about the “hearings.” Or TV programs about the TV programs about the “hearings.” What are they, bored or something? It’s summertime. Surely, one can find better entertainment.

It wasn’t easy to convince my sister to get this selection of 4 ceviches to share. She was originally planning to eat the whole battery of ceviche herself.

These are phenomenal ceviches with real corvina.

By the way, I had my own neurosis surrounding beach vacations. Soviet people tend to have one because beach vacations were a big deal culturally. We went on them as often as we could but we were a sick, broken society, so we accumulated mental traumas in the process.

My beach neurosis was of the same nature as N’s but it manifested physically instead of mentally. I’d have a brilliant time but then exactly at the half-time mark I’d get sick and become incapacitated. If no illness lent itself to my neurosis, I’d start getting injured.

I’ve had everything on these vacations. Bronchitis, severe colds, gallbladder episodes, hypertension, diarrhea, allergic reactions to insect bites, cuts, burns, mysterious limps. Always at the half-time mark and always in the most intense version.

I got this cured. I’m leaving a vacation that I massively enjoyed and during which the worst physical discomfort I suffered was a mosquito bite.

As I mentioned before, my husband experienced terrible abuse as a child. One of the effects is that he’s terrified of having a good time. He feels that if he enjoys himself, a cosmic punishment in the form of some horrific calamity will be visited upon him. This gives him terrible feelings of rage and anxiety.

He’s been working on this with his psychoanalyst for a long time. These feelings receded pretty quickly in all contexts except beach vacations. He really loves beach vacations but they were all spoiled for him by what psychologists call “unbearable affects.”

It would have been easy to numb these feelings with alcohol, drugs, or medication. Alternatively, he could invent a narrative where he doesn’t go on vacation because he’s too busy at work or it’s too expensive or there’s some other excuse. But he kept working on it with the analyst.

And guess what? It helped. We are going home today after a two-week beach holiday during which unbearable affects didn’t make an appearance.

It’s very, very hard work to fix a broken psyche. It’s easier to hide behind the idea that “this is simply how I am.” But we were created with a capacity for great internal peace. We have all been given the gift of joy, tranquility and pleasure. If this capacity has been broken by life, we can recover it.