Saturday, May 4, 2024

“Life Lessons From a Psychiatrist Who’s Been Listening to People’s Problems For Decades”

“Life Lessons From a Psychiatrist Who’s Been
Listening to People’s Problems For Decades”
by Thomas Oppong

“How you approach life says a lot about who you are. As I get deeper into my late 30s I have learned to focus more on experiences that bring meaning and fulfilment to my life. I try to consistently pursue life goals that will make me and my closest relations happy; a trait that many individuals search for their entire lives. Nothing gives a person inner wholeness and peace like a distinct understanding of where they are going, how they can get there, and a sense of control over their actions.

Seneca once said, “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” “No people can be truly happy if they do not feel that they are choosing the course of their own life,” states the World Happiness Report 2012. The report also found that having this freedom of choice is one of the six factors that explain why some people are happier than others.

In his best-selling first book, “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now”, Dr Gordon Livingston, a psychiatrist who’s been listening to people’s problems for decades, revealed thirty bedrock truths about life, and how best to live it. In his capacity as a psychiatrist, Dr Livingston listened to people talk about their lives and the many ways people induced unhappiness on themselves. In his book, he brings his insight and wisdom to the subjects of happiness, fear and courage.

“Life’s two most important questions are “Why?” and “Why not?” The trick is knowing which one to ask.” Acquiring some understanding of why we do things is often a prerequisite to change. This is especially true when talking about repetitive patterns of behavior that do not serve us well. This is what Socrates meant when he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” That more of us do not take his advice is testimony to the hard work and potential embarrassment that self-examination implies.”

Most people operate on autopilot, doing the same things today that didn’t work yesterday. They rarely stop to measure the impact of their actions on themselves and others, and how those actions affect their total well-being. They are caught in a cycle. And once you get caught in the loop, it can be difficult to break free and do something meaningful. Past behavior is the most reliable predictor of future behavior.

If your daily actions and choices are making you unhappy, make a deliberate choice to change direction. No matter how bleak or desperate a situation may appear to look, you always have a choice. “People often come to me asking for medication. They are tired of their sad mood, fatigue, and loss of interest in things that previously gave them pleasure. ”…“Their days are routine: unsatisfying jobs, few friends, lots of boredom. They feel cut off from the pleasures enjoyed by others.

Here is what I tell them: The good news is that we have effective treatments for the symptoms of depression; the bad news is that medication will not make you happy. Happiness is not simply the absence of despair. It is an affirmative state in which our lives have both meaning and pleasure.” “In general we get, not what we deserve, but what we expect,” he says.

Most people know what is good for them, they know what will make them feel better. They don’t avoid meaningful life habits because of ignorance of their value, but because they are no longer “motivated” to do them, Dr Livingston found. They are waiting until they feel better. Frequently, it’s a long wait, he says. Life is too short to wait for a great day to invest in better life experiences.

Most unhappiness is self-induced, Dr Livingston found. “The three components of happiness are something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to. Think about it. If we have useful work, sustaining relationships, and the promise of pleasure, it is hard to be unhappy. I use the term “work” to encompass any activity, paid or unpaid, that gives us a feeling of personal significance. If we have a compelling avocation that lends meaning to our lives, that is our work, ” says Dr Livingston.

Many experiences in life that bring happiness are in your control. The more choices you are able to exercise, and control, the happier you are likely to be. “Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life,” says Mandy Hale. Many people wait for something to happen or someone to help them live their best lives. They expect others to make them happy. They think they have lost the ability to improve their lives.

The thing that characterizes those who struggle emotionally is that they have lost, or believe they have lost, their ability to choose those behaviors that will make them happy, says Dr Livingston. You are responsible for your own life experiences, whether you are seeking a meaningful life or a happy life. If you expect others to make you happy, you will always be disappointed.

You can consistently choose actions that could become everyday habits. It takes time, but it’s an investment that will be worth your while. “Virtually all the happiness-producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time: Learning new things, changing old behaviors, building new relationships, raising children. This is why patience and determination are among life’s primary virtues,”

Most people are stuck in life because of fear. Fear of everything outside their safe zones. Your mind has a way of rising to the occasion. Challenge it, and it will reward you. Your determination to overcome fear and discouragement constitutes the only effective antidote to that feeling on unhappiness you don’t want. Dr Livingston explains. “The most secure prisons are those we construct for ourselves. I frequently ask people who are risk-averse, “What is the biggest chance you have ever taken?” People begin to realize what “safe” lives they have chosen to lead.”

“Everything we are afraid to try, all our unfulfilled dreams, constitute a limitation on what we are and could become. Usually it is fear and its close cousin, anxiety, that keep us from doing those things that would make us happy. So much of our lives consists of broken promises to ourselves. The things we long to do — educate ourselves, become successful in our work, fall in love — are goals shared by all. Nor are the means to achieve these things obscure. And yet we often do not do what is necessary to become the people we want to be.”

As you increasingly install experiences of acceptance, gratitude, accomplishment, and feeling that there’s a fullness in your life rather than an emptiness or a scarcity, you will be able to deal with the issues of life better.

Closing thoughts: Dr Livingston’s words feel true and profound. The real secret to a happy life is selective attention, he says. If you choose to focus your awareness and energy on things and people that bring you pleasure and satisfaction, you have a very good chance of being happy in a world full of unhappiness, uncertainty, and fear."

"Regret..."

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."
~ Sydney J. Harris

"Unreal Stat: One-Third of All U.S. Deaths Due to Prescription Drugs"

"Unreal Stat: One-Third of All
 U.S. Deaths Due to Prescription Drugs"
by Ben Bartee

"Is it possible? Even as jaded as I am on the biomedical industry, I must confess that I’ve never encountered the shocking figure offered below and, actually, would never have guessed at the true possible death toll levied on the American public by the pharmaceutical industry.

Via Epoch Times: “Overtreatment with drugs kills many people, and the death rate is increasing. It is therefore strange that we have allowed this long-lasting drug pandemic to continue*, and even more so because most of the drug deaths are easily preventable.

In 2013, I estimated that our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and in 2015, that psychiatric drugs alone are also the third leading cause of death. However, in the United States, it is commonly stated that our drugs are ‘only’ the fourth leading cause of death. This estimate was derived from a 1998 meta-analysis of 39 U.S. studies where monitors recorded all adverse drug reactions that occurred while the patients were in hospital, or which were the reason for hospital admission.”

Acknowledging the apparently deep level Dr. Gøtzsche’s understanding of the institutional rot in private industry and government, I will take this feigned ignorance of why the murder-by-pharmaceutical agenda has been allowed to continue unopposed as sarcasm.


Of particular interest to me, personally, was the devastation wrought by the class of drugs called benzodiazepines which includes U.S. brand names like Xanax, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.

American doctors (not doctors internationally, curiously) pass them out like candy for any kind of mental health disorder, along with SSRIs, yet fail to warn of the consequences of physical addiction and withdrawal, which are indescribably heinous and which I experienced firsthand.

Continuing: “In 2013, I estimated that, in people aged 65 and above, neuroleptics, benzodiazepines, or similar, and depression drugs kill 209,000 people annually in the United States. I used rather conservative estimates, however, and usage data from Denmark, which are far lower than those in the United States. I have therefore updated the analysis based on U.S. usage data…

For benzodiazepines and similar drugs, a matched cohort study showed that the drugs doubled the death rate, although the average age of the patients was only 55. The excess death rate was about 1 percent per year. In another large, matched cohort study, the appendix to the study report shows that hypnotics quadrupled the death rate (hazard ratio 4.5). These authors estimated that sleeping pills kill between 320,000 and 507,000 Americans every year. A reasonable estimate of the annual death rate would therefore be 2 percent.

For SSRIs, a UK cohort study of 60,746 depressed patients older than 65 showed that they led to falls and that the drugs kill 3.6 percent of patients treated for one year. The study was done very well, e.g. the patients were their own control in one of the analyses, which is a good way to remove the effect of confounders. But the death rate is surprisingly high.”
Christine's Ativan Benzo Induced Akathisia
Sadly, Christine lost her fight with Ativan withdrawal. Read her story here.


Citations and links to the referenced studies are available at the bottom of the Epoch Times article.

The criminality of the pharmaceutical industry and the complicit government is by no means limited to the COVID-19 shots. At this point it’s becoming cliché to say, but we absolutely need Nuremburg-level military tribunals for all involved parties. But, first, we’d need a politic movement with the stomach and the heart and the teeth to take them on.

Ben Bartee, author of "Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile," is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

"How It Really Is"

 

God help you, kids...

"An Absolutely Enormous Economic Shift Of Historic Proportions Is Now Taking Place Right In Front Of Our Eyes"

"An Absolutely Enormous Economic Shift Of Historic
 Proportions Is Now Taking Place Right In Front Of Our Eyes"
by Michael Snyder

"Can you feel it too? Over the past few weeks, I have heard from so many readers that are deeply troubled about economic conditions where they live. In some cases, sales are way down. In other cases, it seems almost impossible to find a decent job. It is almost as if a tremendous chill descended upon the U.S. economy as the second quarter of 2024 began. Yes, economic conditions have certainly not been good for a few years, but it appears that an absolutely enormous economic shift of historic proportions is now taking place right in front of our eyes. Other than the early stages of the pandemic, we haven’t seen anything like this since 2008 and 2009.

Let me give you an example that will illustrate what I am talking about. A reader that lives near Seattle recently wrote me about the horrible downturn that she is witnessing in the tech industry, and she said that I could share this information with all of you… "I live in the tech corridor outside of Seattle and practically no one can find a job in tech. Apparently the costs of AI processors and servers are so expensive that large tech companies are laying off workers to accommodate for the increased infrastructure costs. I would estimate that 50 percent of the people I know in tech are unemployed including myself and my spouse. In addition they are laying off both FTEs and contractors and not backfilling the positions. The problem is exacerbated if you’re over 40 because they don’t want to compensate for experience. In fact experience seems to be working against people. Not to mention AI taking over roles like technical writing and marketing communications. 

It’s getting really bad out there and the large companies play along with the media. I’ve met with several ex colleagues who have had their entire teams laid off and former FTEs who have had to take major pay cuts as contractors. I’ve also heard of more rounds of layoffs coming up. I went over to Microsoft the other morning to have coffee with an ex colleague and it’s a ghost town. No one in conference rooms or offices. Maybe people are working from home but it sure felt very different."

That email resonated with me so strongly, because she is right. Vast hordes of tech workers have already been laid off, and more will be hitting the bricks soon. But the tech industry is supposed to be one of our economic bright spots. If things are this bad for the tech industry, what does this say about the economy as a whole?

Most of the jobs that are still available at this point pay very little. Jobs that actually pay enough to support a middle class lifestyle have been disappearing, and millions of white collar workers find themselves on the outside looking in. The following comes from a Business Insider article entitled “Welcome to the white-collar recession”…"Over the past year or so, pretty much everyone who’s looked for a job has told me the same thing: The job market is brutal right now. They’ve applied to dozens if not hundreds of openings, only to get one or two callbacks. No one’s hiring, they tell me. I’ve never seen it this bad."

Yes. I have heard the same things over and over again too. And it is getting worse with each passing day. On Wednesday, we learned about even more layoffs at Google…"Google fired approximately 200 employees and relocated some of the jobs overseas – the latest sign of a long-running effort by the Big Tech firm to cut costs and restructure itself.

The job cuts - announced internally on the eve of Google’s blowout first-quarter earnings report - targeted members of Google’s “core” team, which works on the “technical foundation behind the company’s flagship products” as well as the online safety of users and its global IT infrastructure, according to its website. At least 50 of the roles were based at Google’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Google is expected to hire replacement workers for the roles in Mexico and India, CNBC reported, citing a review of internal documents."

Large companies all over America are looking to “trim the fat”, and that often means giving the axe to expensive older workers. There is very little loyalty in the corporate world today. You may have given 20 years of your life to a company, but the moment you become expendable they will dump you like a hot potato.

Millions of small businesses are really struggling right now too. During the month of April, 43 percent of all small business renters in the United States were not able to pay their rent in full. The last time we witnessed anything like this was during the lockdowns that were instituted during the early stages of the pandemic…"A significant number of small businesses across the nation are struggling to pay rent due to skyrocketing costs, a recent study by business networking platform Alignable found.

The company’s latest Small Business Rent report, published on Friday, found that 43 percent of small business renters in the U.S. were unable to pay their rent in full and on time in the month of April. Such a high delinquency rate hasn’t been reported in the U.S. since March 2021, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it reached 49 percent. The delinquency rate was also four percentage points higher than in March, making it the largest month-over-month surge in over a year, according to data analyzed by Alignable."

We don’t have a disease to blame this time around. Sadly, conditions are only going to get tougher for small businesses in the months ahead as sales dry up. Meanwhile, the total number of retail stores in the U.S. closed so far in 2024 is up to nearly 2,600…"US retailers confirmed another 169 closures last week – bringing the total so far this year up to almost 2,600. Stores that announced the shuttering of locations included Express, Outfox Hospitality, Shop ‘n Save, Urban Outfitters and Walmart."

We are in the midst of another retail apocalypse. Why aren’t we hearing more about this? On top of everything else, Chicago PMI is dropping at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008…."After miraculously surging to two years highs in Nov 2023, Chicago PMI has plunged for five straight months, with the last four months seeing the MoM declines accelerating. Against expectations of a rise to 45.0 (from March’s 41.4), April’s PMI data printed 37.9"

That is the worst five-month collapse since Lehman…With everything that is going on, how in the world can anyone possibly claim that the economy “is in good shape”? Economic activity is slowing down, mass layoffs are happening all over the country, and the cost of living is absolutely crushing the middle class.

More people are falling out of the middle class every day, and at this point there are tens of millions of Americans that are either considered to be either living in poverty or among the ranks of the “working poor”…."Over time, higher costs and sluggish wage growth have left more Americans financially vulnerable, with many known as “ALICEs.”

Nearly 40 million families, or 29% of the population, fall in the category of ALICE - Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed - according to United Way’s United for ALICE program, which first coined the term to refer to households earning above the poverty line but less than what’s needed to get by. That figure doesn’t include the 37.9 million Americans who live in poverty, comprising 11.5% of the total population, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Collectively, the two categories discussed above now comprise more than 40 percent of the total population."

And if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see the suffering that will happen during the tremendous chaos that is dead ahead of us. It took decades of very foolish decisions to get us here, and now we are at a historic tipping point. Our economy is literally breaking down right in front of our eyes, and the path before us is going to be filled with so much pain."

“Why Are We Gambling With America’s Future?”

“Why Are We Gambling With America’s Future?”
by Brian Maher

“Why are we gambling with America’s future?” This is the question of New York Times columnist David Brooks. More from whom: "America is expected to spend $870 billion, or 3.1 percent of gross domestic product, this year on interest payments on the federal debt. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the government will spend more on interest payments than on the entire defense budget. Within three years, if interest rates remain high, payments on the debt could become the federal government’s second-largest expenditure, behind Social Security…

Pretty soon, you’re staring at Ferguson’s Law. This is the principle enunciated by the historian Niall Ferguson that any nation that spends more on interest payments on the debt than on military spending will slip into decline. It happened to Hapsburg Spain, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire and prerevolutionary France. Will it happen to us?"

Yes - Mr. Brooks - it will happen to us. If it does not happen to us… it will not be because of prudence, forbearance or restraint. It will be because of serendipity. It will be because of luck. Perhaps even divine providence. As Germany’s iron chancellor Bismarck once noted: “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America.” We believe the old Prussian hooked onto something. As we have argued before…

The Luckiest Nation on Earth: God filled two oceans - one Atlantic, one Pacific - to moat the United States off from marauders. Against its land borders north and south He positioned two geopolitical bantamweights. He blessed it with vast tracts of wealthy, fertile land… an extended capillary system of internal waterways… natural harbors from which to send items out… and to take items in. What other nation has enjoyed such natural, God-granted riches?We struggle in vain to conceive of one. Cast your gaze around the world…

An England or a Japan may enjoy maritime insurance against invasion. Yet each is an island nation lacking critical resources. They depend heavily upon the import trade.

Germany inhabits the North European Plain. This plain is a defenseless and nearly infinite expanse stretching from the English Channel in the West clear through to Russia’s Ural Mountains in the East. The geography is a massively extended pancake. Its flatness affords Germany little natural defense. To her southwest lies formidable France. To her east snarls the menacing Russian bear. France - meantime - is eternally vulnerable to Germanic invasion. Look merely to 1870, 1914 and 1940.
Poor Russia

Next we come to Russia. Like Germany, Russia sits on the open North European Plain. This of course exposes her to western invasion. Messieurs Bonaparte and Hitler exploited fully this vulnerability - the former in 1812 - the latter in 1941. And to the east? Russia’s nearly infinite steppes stretch clear through to Mongolia. For what is Mongolia best known? Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde of marauding horsemen who terrorized Eurasia. Crossing these grassy seas, Mongol invaders besieged and conquered Russia. Thus Russia stands vulnerable to invasion from both east and west alike. History has demonstrated this fact to high effect. 

Is it any wonder then why Russia appears so paranoid of territorial transgression? Is it any wonder why Russia is so jealous of its influence over Ukraine - and why the prospect of Ukrainian absorption into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization freezes Russia’s blood? Meantime: Despite Russia’s vast bulk it is boxed in by winter ice that chokes its coasts.

What of China? The Celestial Kingdom: China believes it is the Celestial Kingdom, uniquely favored by God. Yet we are not half-convinced it is true. It erected its Great Wall for a reason. And off its coast lurks a chain of fortresses that bottle it in - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines - all of which ally with God’s chosen nation.

But let us extend our investigation beneath the equator. How about Brazil? “Brazil is the country of the future,” runs the old saw - and “always will be.” Large hunks of it are lawless jungle. It lacks arable land. Its primary cities are isolated dots. The list of second- and third-raters runs on.

No… God has sat America upon Earth’s throne: God’s Sense of Humor: Has God given the United States a Baltimore… a Detroit… a Cleveland? Has He populated its capital with an endless roster of rogues, rascals, cadges, chiselers, grifters and swindlers? Well, friends, maybe He has. Yet even God Almighty must be granted space for error. Perhaps it is not error at all - but intention.

We must concede the possibility that He has a mischievous, even puckish sense of humor, this God. That He delights in pulling noses and yanking chains. He has nonetheless showered America with such immense natural extravagance…

In quiet moments, often in the small hours of night, we often marvel. Why are we so fortunate as to reside in this earthly Eden, this El Dorado, this Elysium? Countless others in the world’s various hells are infinitely more deserving of this high honor. Yet here we are. And here they are not. But to proceed…

Why Are We Gambling With America’s Future? Only Americans themselves could make a botch of this God-hatched idyll. And it appears they are determined to do precisely that. The abovesaid Brooks continues: "Today’s high interest rate environment is already hammering, say, the housing construction industry and making housing even more unaffordable.

The United States continues to borrow all this money even though classical Keynesian theory tells us to borrow in times of recession but commit to debt reduction in times like these, when growth is good…We continue to go further into debt even though the baby boom generation is aging, making programs like Social Security and Medicare more and more costly. The federal government already spends $6 on senior citizens for every $1 on children, which is not exactly investing in the future…

It is infinitely more difficult to get bipartisan majorities to cut spending or raise taxes on the bulk of Americans than it is to get it to spend with borrowed money."

He concludes: "At some point all this self-confidence begins to look like hubris or a rationalization for: We want to spend the future’s money on ourselves. Prudence is a boring virtue, but the prudent course is to get the United States on a more sustainable course. As the meme artists on the internet might say (in slightly more colorful language), you mess around with debt, and sooner or later you’ll find out."

Great nations, like great empires, nonetheless run in cycles - from rosy dawn, to high and cloudless noon, to twilit sundown. The United States is an empire of sorts - though none dare say the word. Perhaps we are merely witnessing an empire in decline, an empire in twilight.

“Empires have a logic of their own,” wrote our own Washington and Jefferson - Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin - in "Empire of Debt", concluding: "ldquo;That they will end in grief is a foregone conclusion.” Alas… even God’s divine providence is not eternal…"

Dan, I Allegedly, "Bank Failures Incoming - What You Must Know Now!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 5/4/24
"Bank Failures Incoming - 
What You Must Know Now!"
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Price Increases At Target!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 5/4/24
"Massive Price Increases At Target! 
Very Few Deals And Some Empty Shelves!"
Comments here:

Friday, May 3, 2024

Scott Ritter, "Georgia Vulnerable to Overthrow, Russia Warns Romania & Poland Against Arming Ukraine"

Full screen recommended.
Scott Ritter, 5/3/24
"Georgia Vulnerable to Overthrow,
 Russia Warns Romania & Poland Against Arming Ukraine"
Comments here:

Jeremiah Babe, "Major Retailer Bites The Dust, 540 Stores Close, 5,000 Lose Their Jobs"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/3/24
"Major Retailer Bites The Dust, 540 Stores Close, 
5,000 Lose Their Jobs; How Safe Are The Pensions?"
Comments here:

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, "Weekly Intel Wrap Up w/Johnson & McGovern"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 5/3/24
"Weekly Intel Wrap Up w/Johnson & McGovern"
Comments here:

Different Russia, "A Few Days Before Easter 2024"

Full screen recommended.
Different Russia, 5/3//24
"A Few Days Before Easter 2024"
Comments here:

Adventures With Danno, "This Is Much Worse Than We Thought!"

Adventures With Danno, PM 4/3/24
"This Is Much Worse Than We Thought!"
Comments here:

Gregory Mannarino, "ATMs Running Out Of Cash? Is Something Big About To Go Down?"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 4/3/24
"ATMs Running Out Of Cash?
 Is Something Big About To Go Down?"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Alan Parsons Project, "Old and Wise"

Full screen recommended.
Alan Parsons Project, "Old and Wise"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“In one of the brightest parts of Milky Way lies a nebula where some of the oddest things occur. NGC 3372, known as the Great Nebula in Carina, is home to massive stars and changing nebulas. The Keyhole Nebula (NGC 3324), the bright structure just above the image center, houses several of these massive stars and has itself changed its appearance.
The entire Carina Nebula spans over 300 light years and lies about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of Carina. Eta Carinae, the most energetic star in the nebula, was one of the brightest stars in the sky in the 1830s, but then faded dramatically. Eta Carinae is the brightest star near the image center, just left of the Keyhole Nebula. While Eta Carinae itself maybe on the verge of a supernova explosion, X-ray images indicate that much of the Great Carina Nebula has been a veritable supernova factory.”

Free Download: Viktor Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning"

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual…

There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden…

What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment…

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
- Viktor Frankl, “Man’s Search for Meaning”
"Man's Search for Meaning"
by Viktor Frankl

"Some details of a particular man's inner greatness may have come to one's mind, like the story of a young woman whose death I witnessed in a concentration camp. It is a simple story. There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented it; but to me it seems like a poem.

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. 'I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard,' she told me. 'In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.' Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, 'This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.' Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. 'I often talk to this tree,' she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. 'Yes.' What did it say to her? She answered, 'It said to me, "I am here - I am here - I am life, eternal life."

Freely download "Man's Search for Meaning", by Viktor Frankl, here:

"There Are Times..."

"There Are Times"

"There are times the lies get to me, times I weary of battering myself against the obstacles of denial, hatred, fear-induced stupidity, and greed, times I want to curl up and fall into the problem, let it sweep me away as it so obviously sweeps away so many others. I remember a spring day a few years ago, a spring day much like this one, only a little more sun, and warmer. I sat on this same couch and looked out this same window at the same ponderosa pine.

I was frightened, and lonely. Frightened of a future that looks dark, and darker with each passing species, and lonely because for every person actively trying to shut down the timber industry, stop abuse, or otherwise bring about a sustainable and sane way of living, there are thousands who are helping along this not-so-slow train to oblivion. I began to cry.

The tears stopped soon enough. I realized we are not so outnumbered. We are not outnumbered at all. I looked closely, and saw one blade of wild grass, and another. I saw the sun reflecting bright off the needles of pine trees, and I heard the hum of flies. I saw ants walking single file through the dust, and a spider crawling toward the corner of the ceiling. I knew in that moment, as I've known ever since, that it is no longer possible to be lonely, that every creature on earth is pulling in the direction of life- every grasshopper, every struggling salmon, every unhatched chick, every cell of every blue whale - and it is only our own fear that sets us apart. All humans, too, are struggling to be sane, struggling to live in harmony with our surroundings, but it's really hard to let go. And so we lie, destroy, rape, murder, experiment, and extirpate, all to control this wildly uncontrollable symphony, and failing that, to destroy it."
- Derrick Jensen,
"A Language Older Than Words"

"Assumptiions..."

 

"Hermann Hesse on Hope, the Difficult Art of Taking Responsibility, and the Wisdom of the Inner Voice"

"Hermann Hesse on Hope, the Difficult Art of Taking Responsibility, 
and the Wisdom of the Inner Voice"
by Maria Popova

“Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life - is the source from which self-respect springs,” Joan Didion wrote in her timeless essay on self-respect. And yet this willingness does not come naturally to the human animal. We glance left and right, we peer above and below, placing the responsibility for our suffering everywhere but at the center of our own being. We treat the unhandsome consequences of our actions as something that happens to us, at us, by some wretched external causality. In the process, the tick of our self-righteousness grows fatter and fatter on bloodthirsty blame.

The great German poet, novelist, and painter Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877–August 9, 1962) offered an antidote to this all too human tendency in one of his least known pieces of writing, composed as the world was coming back to consciousness after the First World War.

The war had violently ejected Hesse from the exultations of his youth. But he never lost his idealism - he became an impassioned advocate for pacifism and its wellspring in the mindfulness of individuals. Over the next three decades, through the aftermath of one devastating war and the harrowing actuality of another, Hesse composed a series of remarkable, clear-minded, largehearted essays, letters, and pamphlets condemning his compatriots for the unthinking herd mentality that had allowed Hitler’s rise to power and inviting what he saw as the only salvation for them: a new ethos of responsibility, beginning at the personal level upon which the political rests. He was especially invested in invigorating the young - the next generations who had inherited a burden not their own and upon whose shoulders the task of redemption fell with spirit-crushing weight.

These pieces were eventually collected in 1946 - the year Hesse received the Nobel Prize - and later published as If the War Goes On… (public library). Among them is the stirring “Letter to a Young German,” written to a dispirited youth in 1919 - a decade before the publication of Rilke’s almost spiritual classic Letters to a Young Poet, and brimming with kindred consolation for the transcendent traumas of living. This was a momentous year for Hesse. Having recently lost his marriage to the fallout of his wife’s acute mental illness, he had just left Berlin to settle alone in a small farmhouse in Switzerland. WWI had just ended, having begun as “the war to end all wars,” instead netting millions of deaths and laying the gruesome groundwork for future genocides. That year, Hesse signed Romain Rolland’s Declaration of the Independence of the Mind - the extraordinary manifesto for critical thinking and pacifism, co-signed by such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Rabindranath Tagore, Jane Addams, and Upton Sinclair.

Hesse addresses his despairing young correspondent while himself perched on this precipice between optimism and despair. Three years before Bertrand Russell made his timeless case for what he termed “the will to doubt,” Hesse writes: "You write me that you are in despair and do not know what to believe, what to hope. You do not know whether or not there is a God. You do not know whether or not life has any meaning, whether or not love of country has a meaning, whether, in the wretched condition of the world, it is better to strive for spiritual goods or merely to fill your belly. I believe your state of mind and soul to be the right one. Not to know whether there is a God, not to know whether there is good and evil, is far better than to know for sure."

More than half a century before Jacob Bronowski admonished against the dark side of certainty, Hesse offers a sobering antidote to the destructive self-righteousness our certitudes delude us into: "Five years ago, if you remember, I should say you were pretty well convinced there was a God, and above all you had no doubt as to what was good and what was evil. Naturally you did what you thought was good and marched off to war. For five years now, the best years of your youth, you have kept on doing “good”: you have fired a gun, gone over the top, lounged about in barracks and mud holes, buried comrades or bandaged their wounds. And little by little you began to doubt the good, to suspect that the good and glorious occupation you were engaged in was fundamentally evil, or at the very least stupid and absurd.

And so it was. Evidently the good you were so sure of at the time was not the right good, the good that is indestructible and timeless; and evidently the God you knew in those days was not the right God… Hundreds of thousands of bloody battle sacrifices were offered up to him, and in his honor hundreds of thousands of bellies were slit open, hundreds of thousands of lungs torn to pieces; he was more bloodthirsty and brutal than any idol…"

With an eye to the tragic human tendency toward perpetrating wrong under the trance of self-righteousness - a tendency as devastating in the personal realm as it is in the political - he holds up a discomfiting mirror to the self-righteous: "Has anyone stopped to consider, and to wonder at the fact, that in those four years of war our theologians buried their own religion, their own Christianity? Committed to the service of love, they preached hatred; committed to the service of mankind, they mistook for mankind the authorities who paid them."

Decades before James Baldwin observed that “it has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within” and a century before Anne Lamott admonished against how self-righteousness syphons self-respect, Hesse contemplates “the disastrous art of putting the blame on others when we are in trouble” and exhorts for personal responsibility over self-righteous blamefulness:

"We are all of us equally guilty and innocent of the fact that our faith was so weak and our officially patented God so ruthless, that we were so incapable of distinguishing war and peace, good and evil. You and I, the Kaiser and the priest, all played a part; we have no call to accuse one another. It is childish and stupid to ask whether this one or that one is guilty. I propose that for one short hour we ask ourselves instead: “What about myself? What has been my share of the guilt? When have I been too loudmouthed, too arrogant, too credulous, too boastful? What is there in me that may have helped… all the illusions that have so suddenly collapsed?”

Echoing Emerson’s foundational ideas about nonconformity and self-reliance - “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string,” the Sage of Concord, whom Hesse read and greatly admired, had written in the previous century - Hesse offers his young correspondent the only real and reliable source of comfort:

"If you are now wondering where to look for consolation, where to seek a new and better God, a new and better faith, you will surely realize, in your present loneliness and despair, that this time you must not look to external, official sources, to Bibles, pulpits, or thrones, for enlightenment. Nor to me. You can find it only in yourself. And there it is, there dwells the God who is higher and more selfless… The sages of all time have proclaimed him, but he does not come to us from books, he lives within us, and all our knowledge of him is worthless unless he opens our inner eye. This God is in you too. He is most particularly in you, the dejected and despairing… Search where you may, no prophet or teacher can relieve you of the need to look within… Don’t confine yourself… to any other prophet or guide. Our mission is not to instruct you, to make things easier for you, to show you the way. Our mission is solely to remind you that there is a God and only one God; he dwells in your hearts, and it is there that you must seek him out and speak with him."

To hear and heed that inner voice - the sound-minded, pure-hearted critical thinking unmuffled by the shriek of self-righteousness, unlulled by herd mentality, unsullied by external manipulation or internal self-delusion - is perhaps the most consistent challenge we face throughout our lives, playing out in myriad forms across every realm of existence.

Complement with E.B. White’s lovely letter to a man who had lost faith in humanity and Seamus Heaney’s splendid advice to the young, then revisit Hesse on why we read and always will, the three types of readers, savoring the little joys of life, and what trees teach us about belonging and life."

The Daily "Near You?"

Brigg, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Never Be A Spectator..."

"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
- Christopher Hitchens

"My Task..."

My task, which I am trying to achieve, is by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel; it is, before all, to make you see. That and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there, according to your deserts, encouragement, consolation, fear, charm, all you demand – and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.”
- Joseph Conrad

"The Devil’s Work"

"The Devil’s Work"
by The Zman

"There is an old expression that has fallen out of favor in the post-scarcity age, but it may be the key to understanding the current crisis. That expression is, “Idle hands do the Devil’s work.” When people do not have anything productive and useful to do with their time, they are more likely to get involved in trouble and criminality. A variant of this is “The Devil makes work for idle hands.” The idea there is if you want to avoid Old Scratch, then make sure you keep yourself useful to God.

The source of these proverbs is unknown, but variations of them go back to the early middle ages, so it is probable they evolved with Christianity. It is not unreasonable to think the idea is universal to civilization. After all, every human society has had to deal with the idle, lazy, and troublesome. Making sure these people are kept too busy to cause trouble is one of those primary challenges of civilization. Every ruler has known that too many idle young men is bad for his rule.

Even in the smaller context, this is something we instinctively know. In the workplace, people with too much free time get into trouble. If the IT staff has too much free time, they start tinkering around with the stuff that is working and before long that stuff stops working and the system goes down. A big part of what goes on inside the schools is to keep the kids and the teachers busy. Home schoolers have known for years that the learning content is just a few hours a day. The rest is busy work.

The point here is that people of all ages need a purpose, something that occupies their mind and their time. If something useful and productive is not filling that need, then something useless or unproductive will fill the void. For most people this may be a hobby or leisure activity. For others, it often means a useless activity is turned into something important. Elevating the mundane to the level of the critical and then creating drama around the performance of the mundane activity.

This is what we see in our political class. The ruling class of every society has a ceremonial role, a procedural role, and a practical role. Outside of a crisis like a war or natural disaster, the political class is performing its duties in the same way a line worker in a factory preforms his role. In popular government this means the pol shows up at public events. He performs the tasks his office requires like signing papers and casting votes. He helps grease the wheels when they need grease.

Into the 20th century, most of our political offices were part-time jobs. State legislatures met for a short period during the year. Otherwise, the legislators were back home doing their jobs. Executive positions like governor and president were fulltime jobs, as they were in charge of the civil service and in the case of president, commander-in-chief of the military. Within living memory, Washington DC would empty out in the spring and remain empty until the fall when Congress returned.

What we see today is politics at all levels has become a full-time job, but one with less to do when it was considered a part-time job. Congress, for example, is something close to a 24-hour drama now. The politicians and their retinues are now doing politics as a full-time obsession. Yet almost all of what they do is unnecessary. In fact, much of what they do is harmful. Very few things passed by Congress enjoy the support of the majority of the people or even a large plurality.

It is not just that these part-time jobs have been made into full-time obsessions. It is that much of what we used to need from government is now filled by individuals, ad hoc networks, and the private sector. Much of what government does is actually done by private contractors on government contracts. One of the ironies of the post-Cold War world is that the federal workforce has declined relative to the population, while the number of people employed in politics has gone up.

Then there is the fact that much of what government does could be automated or simply eliminated entirely. The services that are required like renewing licenses and paying fees can all be automated. In many cases they have been, but that did not result in fewer people, as we see in the dreaded private sector. Instead, it resulted in more idle hands looking for a purpose. On the political side, much of what Congress does could also be eliminated or automated.

What has happened in the last 30 years is we have grown the idle class at the top of our society and while decreasing their necessity. Much of what goes on in our politics is make work designed to get public attention. Think about it. If the cable news channels were shuttered and the social media platforms run by the oligarchs were closed, what would change in America? Nothing of practical importance. Our world would get quieter and there would be a boom in forgotten hobbies.

American political culture evolved during the Cold War to fight communism and prevent a nuclear war. Those were important tasks that occupied the minds and hands of the political class. Once those things went away, those idle hands searched about for a new crisis. Health care, Gaia worship, Islam and now invisible Nazis have been used to keep the idle hands of the political class busy. In the process, the political class has been driven mad and is threatening the rest of society."

"How It Really Is"

"Why Would They Want To Solve It?

"Why Would They Want To Solve It?
By Jim Quinn

"The entire world is nothing but a racket. Just call it a war and the funding is never ending. Why would any politician or general ever want peace? Their funding would stop. Why would Big Pharma and their media co-conspirators ever want to cure cancer or any disease created by other mega-corporations? Their riches would evaporate.

The war on terror must never be won, because the Department of Homeland Security and all the parasites that live off that bloated cow need your money. Joe Rogan points out the same narrative when it comes to homelessness. Bureaucrats and departments in all these Democrat shitholes don’t want to solve the homelessness problem. They would be out of jobs. Everything is a racket."
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Hat tip to The Burning Platform for this material.

Dan, I Allegedly, "You Have to Fend for Yourself"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 5/3/24
"You Have to Fend for Yourself"
"We just heard that Tesla has laid off everyone in their supercharged division. Elon Musk said that the entire EV industry needs to “fend for yourselves.” Plus, we share the unemployment numbers that just don’t seem to change. Do you believe this?"
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Bill Bonner, "Follow the Money"

"Follow the Money"
Free Speech is the easiest and simplest of the Bill of Rights protections. 
The Constitution says plainly that “Congress shall make no law” 
that restricts our right to express ourselves.
by Bill Bonner

"Randall Mindy: The truth is way more depressing. They’re not even smart enough to be as evil as you’re giving them credit for.
Kate Dibiasky: Would you please, just stop being so [bleep] pleasant? I’m sorry, but not everything needs to sound so goddamn clever or charming or likeable all the time. Sometimes we need to just be able to say things to one another. We need to hear things! Look, let’s establish, once again, that there is a huge comet headed towards Earth."
- "Don’t Look Up" (2021)

Dublin, Ireland - As the nation keeps its head down... its eyes on its own feet...it rejects the principles that made it great…and the comet speeds up.

Setting aside Social Security contributions, the federal budget has not been in the black since the 1970s. The US dollar - a real money backed by gold - was replaced with ‘Federal Reserve Notes,’ (IOUs from the Fed), in 1971.

Free enterprise has turned into managed enterprise... subject to control by Congress, the White House and bureaucrats in hundreds of agencies and departments, with mountains of paperwork and a plethora of rules and regulations. Just try to open a mine or factory in California!

Free Speech is the easiest and simplest of the Bill of Rights protections. The Constitution says plainly that “Congress shall make no law” that restricts our right to express ourselves.

But here, in the news from yesterday... Congress is proposing just such a law. And it has the support of a majority of our elected representatives. First Amendment... first schmamendment... Washington Post: "House passes divisive antisemitism bill as GOP denounces campus protests."

"GOP leaders this week announced plans for new oversight investigations of elite universities where - in the words of House Republican Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.) - “pro-terrorist anti-Semites [are] taking over.” And on Wednesday, they passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which its advocates said would empower the federal government to crack down on anti-Israel protests on campuses by codifying a definition of antisemitism..."

If this passes, we will still be free to criticize Albanians... Indonesians... or even those “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” in France. But when it comes to Israelis, we will hold our tongues... lest we say too much. The deciders will determine what is permissible to say and what is not.

We remind readers that we have nothing to add to the discussion of stupidity or venality of Congress... or to mass murder, Zionism, war in Ukraine, white supremacism, racism, anti-semitism or any other kind of ‘ism.’ Who’s right? Who’s wrong? It’s not for us to say. We’re just looking at how the dots connect... and wondering when the debt comet is going to strike.

The question for us is not whether the proposed law is ‘good’ or ‘evil’... but what it means. Why would the elected representatives of ‘The People’ want to throw overboard a constitutional protection that has served us well for 233 years? Why now?

Why would they want to ditch a common sense rule - such as, don’t spend more than you can afford - when everyone knows it is crucial to our financial security?

Why would they want to entangle the US in fights all over the world... where it cannot win, has no clear objective... and no real business getting involved in the first place?

At a practical, readily-understood level, the answer is simple: Follow the money. The Guardian: "A handful of pro-Israel groups fund political campaigns in support of individual candidates in US elections, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), a powerful force in American politics. Before the 2024 election, Aipac plans to spend tens of millions of dollars against congressional candidates, primarily Democrats, whom it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel."

Take representative Don Bacon, for example. He seems like a decent fellow. But he knows which side his bread is buttered on. He has received about a quarter of a million dollars from Pro-Israel donors. Naturally, he does what he is paid to do. “Whatever Israel wants ... we should be there to help,” he says.

And here we find the definition of corruption in the late, degenerate US empire. Tom Emmer, mentioned above, valiantly stands up for truth... at least for the part of it his paymasters want to be heard. Who butters his bread? Surprise, surprise... his largest single campaign donor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Neither Bacon, Emmer, nor any other member of Congress may be particularly corrupt. The rot is deeper and more pervasive than that; decisions are made at the behest of special interests, not the US public. And it is not just the Israelis who have Congress bought and paid for. Here’s Breitbart:

“People talk about how, you know, the Democrats are the problem, or the Republicans are the problem in Washington. And, you know, presidencies come and go and the swamp still remains the same,” [Brody] Mullins explained. “So, we wanted to dig deeper and say, ‘What’s really at the core of the problems in Washington?’ and we look at the lobbying community.”

Corporate lobbyists spend so much money on Washington, they have both parties in their pockets and they really get passed, whatever they want for the last 40 or 50 years... corporations are spending to change public policy in ways that help companies, but hurts the rest of us. Follow the money."

"Warning: Now Entering The Accelerated Collapse Stage Of The Nation Once Known As 'America'”

"Warning: Now Entering The Accelerated Collapse
Stage Of The Nation Once Known As 'America'”
by Mike Adams

"We Americans no longer have a nation. We no longer have a functioning representative government, honest elections, a free press or a fair justice system. From here, the collapse only accelerates more quickly, and right now, we are being simultaneously overrun by illegal invaders as well as a theocratic tyrannical regime that's weaponized against the thoughts and speech of the American people. The spiral of collapse is now entering a rapid acceleration stage, and there's no rescuing this nation before the collapse."
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Thursday, May 2, 2024

Gerald Celente, "Crackdown On Freedom Escalating; Dragflation Coming"

Very Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, Trends Journal 5/2//24
"Crackdown On Freedom Escalating; 
Dragflation Coming"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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Jeremiah Babe, "FantasyLand Is Over, We're In Big Trouble; There Is No Tomorrow"

Jeremiah Babe, 5/2/24
"FantasyLand Is Over, We're In Big Trouble;
 There Is No Tomorrow"
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