"Change, Propaganda, And Painting Lessons"
by John Wilder
“You were looking for a way to change your life.”
– "Fight Club"
"I’ve stared at the ceiling at 3 a.m. more times than I care to count in the past, wondering why some things in my life change and others stay stuck like a rusted engine nut on a ’78 Jeep® pickup.
Change. It sounds simple. Turn left instead of right. Take the red pill or the blue pill or both. Eat the salad. Quit the habit I want to quit. But the real change, the kind that rewires who I am, doesn’t happen because somebody tells me to change. Change doesn’t happen because the boss is watching or the government posts another billboard. Change happens when something inside me finally decides it’s time.
And the crazy part? I control that switch. No matter what my situation looks like right now, no matter how many birthdays I’ve stacked up, that control is still mine. Let me tell you what doesn’t work.
First, someone trying to make me change. Forget it. I’m stubborn. Bull-headed, really. Push me, and I’ll dig in like a moist Missouri mule afflicted with mucus. I’ve sent pushy salesmen packing more times than I can remember. They come at me with the hard sell, the guilt trip, the “you really should” speech, and my natural reaction is to do the exact opposite. It’s not rational. It’s not even smart sometimes. But it’s me.
Second, someone with power hovering over my shoulder, monitoring me. Sure, I’ll toe the line while they’re looking. I’ll smile, nod, and change exactly enough to get them off my back. The minute the spotlight moves, though? Back to business as usual. No buy-in. No real shift. Just temporary theater. I know I’m not the only one.
Third, the whole society-is-watching angle. This is Big Brother with a million little henchmen. I’ll admit it: back when I was a kid, the “Give a hoot, don’t pollute®” campaign actually worked on wee Wilder. I picked up trash and felt good about it. But that was simple. Today it’s different. Now it’s algorithms written for the fat-breasted blue-haired virtue warbler. It’s social pressure and cameras everywhere, all trying to nudge behavior. I see it for what it is: a fancier version of the same old “boss is watching me” game. I might play along in public when I absolutely must, but inside? Still no sale.
So, what actually moves the needle? Only one thing I’ve ever found works that works on me or anyone else: changing values. And values don’t change because of logic. They change because of emotion, and not common emotions like “cold” or “sleepy” or “salt.” No. Raw, strong, gut-punch emotion.
Take when I became a new father. One minute the world revolved around me. The next minute I was holding this tiny human who depended on me for everything, and I realized the universe didn’t orbit John Wilder anymore unless I put on enough weight to create my own gravity well. That was a big deal. Not a lecture. Not a chart. Just pure, overwhelming emotion. My values shifted: “providing” and “protecting” now were more important than “buzzed” and “sleepy”. Everything else got rearranged around that.
I’ve seen the same thing in guys who barely survive a heart attack. One day they’re carrying an extra seventy pounds, puffing on cigs, eating like a fat girl on a date with a blind man. The next day after their slow dance with the reaper? They drop the weight, kill the habits, start running, and turn into the most irritating health evangelists you’ve ever met, nearly as bad as bicycling atheist vegan transexual Harvard™ grads. Nearly dying does that, I guess.
It’s not a gentle suggestion from a doctor. It’s terror and relief and gratitude and fear all slamming together at once into the conclusion that there are a finite amount of seconds left on that clock. Emotion rewires the hardware.
That’s also exactly how propaganda works. It skips the logic and goes straight for the deepest buttons we have: lust, fear, the need to belong, pain, despair and the need for PEZ™. Most of them are negative, because negative is easy to manufacture, and negative sticks. And in 2026 we’re swimming in it. Screens, news, ads, entertainment are a constant bombardment trying to shift what we value without us even noticing.
One excellent YouTuber® on this subject is Screenwashed™, and he talks about how films are used to destroy our culture. He breaks down the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways Hollywood rewires what we think is normal, what we think is heroic, what we think we should want. I’m not sure exactly how long it’ll be before they come to get this guy, but I’d suggest you give him a look. Here’s one of his videos.
Even I, the mighty John Wilder, am not immune from propaganda. I’ve caught myself feeling emotions I didn’t ask for after watching something “harmless.” That’s why I’ve gotten deliberate about what I let into my head. I pick and choose. I pause and ask: What emotion is this feeding me right now? Why? Does it line up with the man I want to be, or is it nudging me toward someone else’s script?
The external stuff can scream all it wants. The pressures, the trends, the crises, the propaganda machines can poke and prod and threaten. But the final decision on what I value? That’s mine. Always has been. We can all flip it. Not because some expert or politician or trending hashtag told us to. Not because someone’s watching or shaming. But because we decide to let in an emotion strong enough to move the values that actually run your life.
Starve the propaganda. Examine every emotion that shows up at your door and decide if it gets to stay. Change isn’t a mystery. It’s not reserved for the young or the lucky or the disciplined. It’s a simple, stubborn fact: I control the basis of it. I always have. And so do you. The world can keep pushing. I’ll keep deciding."
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