“Sometimes I lie awake at night, and ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?'
Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'”
- Charles M. Schulz
- Charles M. Schulz
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
"Luddites Were Right, You Know…"
"Luddites Were Right, You Know…"
By Chris Black
"The term “Luddite” originated in the early 19th century and refers to a movement of English textile workers who protested against the increased use of machines in their industry. The term “neo-Luddite” was later applied to those who similarly oppose technology for similar reasons, but in a contemporary context.
Everywhere you go, you see people with their faces in their phones. Constantly, constantly, constantly. At the bus stop. On the train. In the driver’s seats of their moving cars. Their kid makes a bit of noise at the restaurant table? Shove the iPad in their face.
Boomerisms aside, it really can’t be overstated how f**ked up this is, and not because “people don’t interact” anymore. It’s actually much worse than that… Nobody ever allows themselves even a moment of peace inside their own heads. The real insidiousness of the smartphone is that it encourages you to constantly consume content, endlessly, never ever stopping. It’s common for people to spend their entire day with earphones in, listening to podcasts and watching Tiktoks literally constantly.
Our brains did not evolve to be bombarded with constant microbursts of hyper real stimulation this way. Attention spans are getting measurably shorter. Reaction times are getting longer. None of this sh*t is good for your brain.
Everyone always says, “Well, what about TV and the radio?” Inherently limited and fundamentally different because of the fact that they’re pre-programmed and don’t act as “magic mirrors” of you and your personal inputs into them. Your smartphone is designed to learn everything about you so that it can be as addictive as possible and maximize the amount of data it squeezes out of you. Nothing about TV or the radio - or even Web 1.0 internet - ever came anywhere close to this.
Even so, we have known for decades that TV is horrible for your brain on account of many of the same mechanisms that affect attention span and cognitive development. So imagine how much worse the smartphone is. Unfathomably worse. We already know it’s worse, but we won’t know exactly how much worse it is until at least another decade, when the younger Zoomers and Gen Alphas are a few years into adulthood after an upbringing that revolved around Web 2.0.
Millennials were lucky enough not to take the full brunt of the experience. We got our first taste as we came of age instead of growing up being marinated in it. The saddest part is that the only reason any of this even caught on or is the least bit operable is because of the fact that it hijacks the mechanisms that make us feel satisfied and good. We didn’t evolve to handle this level of stimulation, but BOY do we respond to it. It’s so excessive that it’s impossible for some people to resist. So there are no f**king brakes.
You have to cast The Ring into the fire or it totally consumes you. That’s the reality for most people. And that, my friends, is just sick.
Look at your screen usage on your phone and tell me I’m wrong, how you totally don’t need it and can stop whenever you want. You are no better than a crack head, and you won’t realize that until you actually do try to stop for real. It’s unprecedented in human history to think this way. We are truly in uncharted waters here. Just wait until the sensory overload most people are bathing in all day, every day becomes fully automated instead of just partially automated like it is now."
"This Chart Shows The Job Market Is Running On Fumes"
Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 10/1/30
"This Chart Shows The Job
Market Is Running On Fumes"
Comments here:
"The Job market Is F**cked, Americans Are Barely Hanging On
Jeremiah Babe, 10/1/30
"The Job market Is F**cked, Americans Are Barely Hanging On;
Tax Liens Plague Homeowners"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Orlando Miner, 10/1/30
"Government Shutdown, All Paychecks Stopped"
Comments here:
"What Are The Facts?"
"What are the facts? Again and again and againwhat are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what the stars foretell, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the un-guessable verdict of history - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"
- Robert A. Heinlein
And always remember...
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "Sherlock Holmes"
Free Download: "Report From Iron Mountain On The Possibility And Desirability Of Peace"
"Truth emerges, often, in unexpected places. The “Report from Iron Mountain” may have been a spoof, designed only to elicit a knowing chuckle from the cynical cognoscenti, but it reveals the real cause of war better than any group of federal hacks ever could. The supposed background is that a 15-member group of pipe smokers got together in a Special Study Group to speculate on the consequences of ‘peace.’ They met in a nuclear-secure bunker under Iron Mountain. They came to the conclusion that government is incompatible with ‘peace.’ It can’t exist without war. Nation states only exist so they can make war.
There was nothing new about this insight. “War is the health of the state,” said Randolph Bourne. War is not just useful to government; it is government. The defining difference between the US government and the Catholic Church, Kiwanis Club or Walmart is that the former uses force to get what it wants. The latter do not. Without the use of force – police, jails, wars – the ‘state’ would have no reason to exist why war is inevitable…and why the US will probably lose it."
o
Freely download
"Report From Iron Mountain On The
Possibility And Desirability Of Peace" here:
Canadian Prepper, "WW3: A Major War Begins In October w/Prof. Jiang
Canadian Prepper, 10/1/30
"WW3: A Major War Begins In October w/Prof. Jiang
Comments here:
John Wilder, "Finding Our Way Back To Wealth"
"Finding Our Way Back To Wealth"
by John Wilder
"Wealth. It’s the golden goose that societies have all chased, but most forget where the eggs come from. I assure you it’s no longer Detroit, but we’ll get to that.
Spoiler: it’s not just the land, the trees, or the shiny rocks or sticky fluids underground. Sure, Saudi Arabia’s sitting on enough oil to lube up Oprah with enough left over for a dozen Kardashians, but without the brainpower to drill, refine, and ship it, they’d still be herding camels and wondering what a Ferrari is. The same goes for North America. For millennia the fertile plains forests were untouched. It was a backwater until European misfits turned it into the world’s breadbasket and factory floor.
Wealth isn’t just stuff; it’s the ingenuity, sweat, and sheer cussedness of people making things happen. The dirt’s nice, don’t get me wrong, and someone, somewhere has to have it or else things would get mighty hungry might fast. Iowa’s black soil grows corn like it’s auditioning for a role in a Monsanto® ad as a glyphosate-absorbing sponge. Canada? Canada’s got enough timber so it could stack it up and reach the Moon. They also have nearly that many Indians.
But Japan? Japan is a rocky island with zero oil, barely any farmland, and a tendency to shake like a wet dog every few years. Yet it’s a global powerhouse, punching well above the weight of its country’s size or population.
Why? The people. Same with England, Singapore, Taiwan. No natural resources to speak of, but their folks figured out how to turn ideas into skyscrapers, cars, and microchips. Even Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth wasn’t something the Saudis turned into wealth. It was a group of Western engineers and wildcatters that turned that black liquid into gold. Without them, the Saudis might still be sitting on a lake of useless sludge, arguing over whose camel was the best hump.
North America is the same story, minus the camel arguments. For thousands of years, the continent had everything: buffalo, forests, rivers teeming with fish. Yet, outside of some Mesoamerican skull-stacking enthusiasts in Mexico, it was dangerous and dirt-poor. Why?
That’s a big question, because just a few years later the Europeans showed up. They brought the tools, the technology, and most importantly the mindset to make the place a source of plenty. By the 19th century, the U.S. was feeding and arming half the world, not because the land changed, but because people did. They built railroads, factories, and a culture that rewarded hard work over siestas and skull collecting. Wealth exploded. For a while.
The GloboLeft thinks wealth comes from a magical printing press. Since the Soviet Union keeled over in 1991, the world has belonged to the U.S. dollar: print it, spend it, everybody loves it. But cash is most definitely not wealth: at best, it’s just a scorecard. Real wealth comes from production: making stuff, growing stuff, inventing stuff and developing a moral and trustworthy people. But now we’re spending our wealth on things that actively destroy the system.
Take immigration. Please. Unchecked waves of illegals, incentivized to cross borders with freebies? Not good. Legal immigrants who think that Western values are an outmoded suggestion that only naïve people would follow? That’s not a workforce; it’s a drain.
Then there’s the family fiasco. Single-parent households are mostly moms with no dads. These mom-led houses represent 65% of black kids and 24% of white kids growing up fatherless in 2020. The GloboLeft cheers this like it’s fEmALe EmPOwErmENt, but kids without dads are far more likely to drop out, do drugs, or end up in jail. That’s not building a trustworthy people: it’s building chaos. A stable family is like a factory for productive citizens: break it, and you’re churning out liabilities, not assets. This is yet another reason I keep banging on the “the family is the base unit of society, not the individual” drum.
We actively pay people to not work. The Social Security Administration reports disability claims have spiked 20% since 2000, with over 8 million Americans on the rolls by 2023. Some are legitimate. Nobody’s knocking the guy who lost a leg in a mill accident (his name is Skip, by the way), but when “anxiety” qualifies you for a lifetime of checks, we’re paying people to sit on the couch instead of building bridges. That’s wealth destruction, plain and simple.
Healthcare? That’s another black hole. The U.S. spends 18% of GDP on it. $4.5 trillion in 2022. That’s more than any other nation. Yet, we get crap for it. Life expectancy is flat, and obesity is up 40% since 1990. We’re not paying to make people healthier: we’re bankrolling a system that patches symptoms while folks chug Mountain Dew® and avoid treadmills. A healthy population works harder, lives longer, creates more, and is happier. A sick one? It’s a money pit.
All this anti-wealth nonsense is sold as compassion. Free money, open borders, no-fault welfare? It sounds warm and fuzzy until you realize it’s starving the engine that makes societies thrive. Wealth isn’t the goal. Wealth is the fuel for a happy, healthy, productive life. Without it, you get decay, both literal and figurative. Look at Detroit: once a manufacturing titan, now a ghost town because the focus shifted from making to taking, complete with a demoralized population.
So how do we get back on track? Stop pretending money equals wealth. Reward production. Cut the incentives for idleness; if you can work, you should. Fix families by making it easier for dads to stick around and reducing the incentives for women to break up a family for fun and prizes. Make being a whore shameful again.
Streamline healthcare to focus on prevention, not endless treatments – 30% or so of what will be spent on a human for healthcare during their entire lifetime is in the last year – wouldn’t it be better if their last decade was better? And secure the borders—nations that can’t control their edges can’t control their economies. Almost every economic problem this country has is downstream of immigration.
Wealth isn’t in the dirt or the printing press; it’s in the people who turned dirt into crops, ideas into empires. Let’s stop subsidizing sloth and start hammering out real wealth again. Otherwise, we’re just paving our roads with good intentions. And we all know where that leads. Hell, it leads to Hell. Or Detroit."
"How It Really Is"
The greatest little whorehouse, well, anywhere...
"Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself."
"All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots,
and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity."
"...the smallest minds and the selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes."
"The lightning there is peculiar; it is so convincing, that when it strikes a
thing it doesn't leave enough of that thing behind for you to tell whether -
Well, you'd think it was something valuable, and a Congressman had been there."
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly
native American criminal class except Congress."
"Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a Congressman can."
- Mark Twain
"US Government Has Officially Shutdown, How SNAP Benefits Will Be Impacted"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 10/1/30
"US Government Has Officially Shutdown,
How SNAP Benefits Will Be Impacted"
Comments here:
Adventures with Danno, "Massive Price Increases at Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 10/1/25
"Massive Price Increases at Sam's Club"
Comments here:
"The Real Reason For Government Shutdown"
The Common Sense Show, 10/1/25
"The Real Reason For Government Shutdown"
Comments here:
Bill Bonner, "Shutdown"
"Shutdown"
by Bill Bonner
Dublin, Ireland - "First up...a government shutdown. Bloomberg: "US Begins Government Shutdown With Trump, Democrats at Impasse." But wait. Even as the shutdown approached, stocks rose. How could they go up while the single biggest player in the whole economy withdraws? Maybe it doesn’t matter. Associated Press: "What happens in a shutdown? FBI investigators, CIA officers, air traffic controllers and agents manning airport checkpoints continue to work. So do members of the Armed Forces.
Those programs that rely on mandatory spending also generally continue during a shutdown. Social Security checks continue to go out. Seniors who rely on Medicare coverage can still go see their doctors and health care providers and submit claims for payment and be reimbursed. Veteran health care also continues during a shutdown. Veterans Affairs medical centers and outpatient clinics will be open and VA benefits will continue to be processed and delivered. Burials will continue at VA national cemeteries. The mail still gets delivered. And federal agencies mostly stay open."
In the end, a ‘shutdown’ doesn’t do much damage and is usually soon resolved. But so stitched up is the economic and financial world, that almost nothing you hear about it is true...or meaningful. Take, for example, the ‘good news’ that the US economy is ‘growing faster than expected.’ CNBC: "U.S. economy expanded 3.3% in Q2, with growth even stronger than initially though." That was such ‘good news’ that it brought forth comment from POTUS, who claims paternity. "Great Numbers came out today on the Economy (3.8%!), and the SUCCESS we are having, but our Interest Rates are too high!”
The Donald seems to believe that at present interest rates he is having great SUCCESS. But if the program is working so well...what sense does it make to change it? We don’t know. But it turns out that the SUCCESS is actually FAILURE and the ‘good news’ is actually ‘bad news.’ When the number crunchers calculate GDP, they subtract imports (since they are not part of US output). So, if imports go down...it is a plus to GDP.
As it turned out, Donald Trump’s trade war reduced imports by more than five percentage points (of GDP). Actual US output - all the hustle and bustle of the domestic economy - was down at more than a 1% annual rate. But adding back the fall of imports left the wonks with a 3.8% net positive growth rate.
Alas, US economic growth is a phantom...a statistical artifice caused by the fact that Americans are getting fewer products from abroad. If you look at the first two quarters of the year, you see that housing went down. Both imports and exports went down. Even government spending went down.
What went up was billions in capital investment of the strangest and least productive sort - in AI. Company A buys AI from company B. The purchase is added to GDP. And both stocks rise. Both continue to lose money (and make the world poorer). This is perhaps the most disturbing insight of all. Both the stock market and the economy are now growing - but only because of a whirligig of ‘capex’ spending on AI...which is most likely money down the drain.
In the stock market, Yahoo! Finance: "The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution began in earnest with the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022. The S&P 500 has advanced 72% since then despite headwinds arising from high interest rates, stubborn inflation, and sweeping tariffs. Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at J.P.Morgan, recently said, “AI related stocks have accounted for 75% of S&P 500 returns, 80% of earnings growth, and 90% of capital spending growth since ChatGPT launched.”
In the economy’s first half of the year, fully three quarters of the actual GDP came not from real increases in output but from increases in AI spending. So, what have we here? Artificial intelligence has created an artificial bubble...with artificially high stock prices...and an artificial economy that depends on artificial investment (of borrowed, not earned, artificial money, lent at artificially low rates). Stay tuned."
Dan, I Allegedly, "Subprime 2.0 is Here - Middle Class Wipeout"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 10/1/25
"Subprime 2.0 is Here - Middle Class Wipeout"
"Subprime 2.0 is here - and it’s exploding in America’s payday loan market. Millions are trapped in a dangerous cycle of debt, with sky-high fees and interest rates that quietly rival the last financial crisis. What looks like small “cash advances” is becoming a massive hidden debt bubble that threatens households, banks, and the entire economy. In this video, we break down how payday loans, wage-advance apps, and new fintech schemes are fueling a silent economic crisis. If you thought the subprime meltdown of 2008 was bad, wait until you see how this version is unfolding."
Comments here:
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
"Avi Loeb: 3I/ATLAS Sent a Signal in 1977"
Full screen recommended.
The Calm Scientist, 9/30/25
"Avi Loeb: 3I/ATLAS Sent a Signal in 1977"
"What if a famous signal from the past wasn't random noise, but a deliberate message from a passing visitor? In this bedtime exploration of cosmic mysteries, we follow Avi Loeb's striking hypothesis about 3I/ATLAS - the interstellar object that may have sent humanity a transmission decades before we ever knew it existed. From the iconic 1977 detection to the mathematics of impossible timing, we'll drift between radio whispers and orbital mechanics, exploring how an object from beyond our solar system could have called out to us long before its arrival. Why does the thought of an earlier contact change everything? What does it mean when the timeline of discovery gets rewritten by a wandering messenger? Tonight, we lean into the improbable, tracing the threads of signal analysis, cosmic coincidence, and the audacious questions that connect us across time and space."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
ORBIONVERSE, 9/30/25
"200x Bigger Object Just Arrived -
and It’s Targeting 3I/ATLAS!"
"A glowing emerald object streaks across space—our sharpest, clearest look at 3I/ATLAS so far. We break down what its unusual shape and eerie green halo really reveal: chemistry, velocity, and trajectory. But is it a comet, an asteroid… or something engineered? We examine the strongest evidence against the hype. See side-by-side image comparisons, dynamic simulations, and why experts remain divided. Stay until the end for our straightforward verdict - and what to expect in the weeks ahead."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
The Hidden Abyss, 9/30/25
"NASA Emergency Meeting: Something Just
Violently Ambushed 3I Atlas, We Are Not Prepared!"
"Panic rippled through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Data streams from the deep space network went wild, then silent, as something violently ambushed 3 i atlas. This interstellar comet, once a subject of scientific awe, became a victim of an unknown force, triggering an unprecedented Nasa emergency meeting. The very fabric of our cosmic understanding has been torn, revealing a terrifying gap in our defenses. We’re going to explore the astonishing facts of what happened, why it has rocked the scientific community to its core, and why humanity is suddenly facing a threat for which we are tragically unprepared."
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "United Nations? No, United Nothings, A Global Freak Show, All Talk, No Action"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 9/30/25
"United Nations? No, United Nothings,
A Global Freak Show, All Talk, No Action"
"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."
Comments here:
"Russian Typical Apartment: Could You Live There?"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 9/30/25
"Russian Typical Apartment:
Could You Live There?"
"What does a Russian Typical Apartment look like in Moscow, Russia? Join me on a tour of a Typical Russian Apartment listed for rent in the Spanish Quarter in the South West of Moscow. How does it look inside, and what does the surrounding area look like?"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“About 70 million light-years distant, gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 289 is larger than our own Milky Way. Seen nearly face-on, its bright core and colorful central disk give way to remarkably faint, bluish spiral arms. The extensive arms sweep well over 100 thousand light-years from the galaxy's center.
At the lower right in this sharp, telescopic galaxy portrait the main spiral arm seems to encounter a small, fuzzy elliptical companion galaxy interacting with enormous NGC 289. Of course spiky stars are in the foreground of the scene. They lie within the Milky Way toward the southern constellation Sculptor.”
The Poet: Maya Angelou, “Alone”
“Alone”
“Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home,
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone.
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong,
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use,
Their wives run round like banshees,
Their children sing the blues.
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone,
But nobody,
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know…
Storm clouds are gathering,
The wind is gonna blow.
The race of man is suffering,
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody,
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone,
Nobody, but nobody,
Can make it out here alone.”
- Maya Angelou
"The Collapse Of The American Dream Is Here Already"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 9/30/25
"The Collapse Of The American Dream Is Here Already"
"The American Dream isn’t fading - it’s already collapsed. From housing you’ll never afford, to grocery prices that rob your paycheck, to debt that chains you for life, this video exposes the harsh truth of 2025. The middle class is vanishing, families are breaking under costs, and the future looks darker than ever. Watch now before it’s too late."
Comments here:
"The Real Reason Why Millions of Americans Are Living in Third World Conditions"
Full screen recommended.
Mrs. Honest, 9/30/25
"The Real Reason Why Millions of Americans
Are Living in Third World Conditions"
"Imagine living in the wealthiest country on earth, yet you don’t have clean drinking water, reliable electricity, or even a safe place to sleep at night. For millions of Americans, this isn’t a nightmare from a distant land - it’s their everyday reality. Homeless encampments under bridges, families without running water in rural towns, and neighborhoods where broken infrastructure leaves people living like it’s a forgotten world."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
A Homestead Journey, 9/30/25
"Starbucks Closes Down as
Normal Life in America Collapses"
"Starbucks is closing down locations across America, and it’s more than just a coffee chain shutting doors - it’s a clear warning about the state of the country. Inflation, the cost of living crisis, rising food costs, and skyrocketing rent are crushing families. Normal life in America is collapsing right before our eyes, and if even Starbucks can’t survive, what chance do ordinary people or small businesses have? The cracks in the system are widening, and the reality of life in America 2025 is impossible to ignore."
Comments here:
"Is It Any Wonder, Then..."
"Thomas Edison said in all seriousness: "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the labor of thinking" - if we bother with facts at all, we hunt like bird dogs after the facts that bolster up what we already think - and ignore all the others! We want only the facts that justify our acts - the facts that fit in conveniently with our wishful thinking and justify our preconceived prejudices. As Andre Maurois put it: "Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage." Is it any wonder, then, that we find it so hard to get at the answers to our problems? Wouldn't we have the same trouble trying to solve a second-grade arithmetic problem, if we went ahead on the assumption that two plus two equals five? Yet there are a lot of people in this world who make life a hell for themselves and others by insisting that two plus two equals five- or maybe five hundred!"
- Dale Carnegie
"Ignorance and Idolatry: The Death of Critical Thinking"
Full screen recommended.
The Psyche, 9/30/25
"Ignorance and Idolatry:
The Death of Critical Thinking"
"What happens to a society when people stop questioning? When ignorance is disguised as knowledge, and idols - whether celebrities, leaders, or ideologies - replace independent thought? This video explores the dangerous link between ignorance and idolatry, revealing how both slowly erode one of humanity’s greatest powers: critical thinking. Drawing on the insights of Socrates, Nietzsche, Jung, and Hannah Arendt, we uncover why so many surrender their freedom to fear, authority, and cultural idols - and how this silent surrender leads to conformity, manipulation, and the death of true individuality. But this is not just a warning; it is also a call to awaken. By the end, you’ll discover how to resist the idols of our time, reclaim your independence of thought, and embrace the courage it takes to live freely and authentically."
Comments here:
"Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think
they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think."
- Thomas A. Edison
"Nobility..."
"The people of today have no nobility. They do not even know what it means to be noble of heart. There is no strength of character; there is only emotion. We live in a worldwide society of emotion-based actions, emotion-based thinking, emotion-based words. People do things because they feel like it, they think things ruled by their emotions to think it and they say things because in that moment it's what they are feeling. Character does, thinks and says from a place of core identity and truth. "This is my truth, thus I will do it, think it, speak it." Nobility means strength of character, a word of honor, immovability and mind over matter. The feelings and emotions of a noble person do not merely come and go with the tides; they are there in the first place because they wouldn't have been there if it were not already decided upon. That is nobility."
- C. JoyBell C.
"Lift Up Your Eyes"
"Lift Up Your Eyes"
by Paul Rosenberg
"When was the last time you tasted the sublime? When did you last feel wonder? Can you remember feeling awed by something? These are things we need, if we are to thrive. They are fuel for the higher human abilities. If we lack them, as is currently endemic throughout the West, our higher abilities will lag. For lack of better terms we can call these feelings “upward movements of the heart,” and we are diminished when there is a lack of them. Without them we fail to develop our higher capacities and insights. We slide more and more toward becoming, in one critic’s words, “mere trousered apes.”
I am certainly not the first person to notice this. Here, for example, is something Albert Einstein wrote on the subject: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Here’s a comment from Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence, nor imagination, nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius." And here’s a poem from Richard Feynman:
"Out of the cradle
onto the dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."
We need these things.
Currents to the Contrary: Sadly, the modern West has become a mad scramble to distract as many sets of eyes as possible, and to keep them – to own them – for as long as possible. And so long as professional distractors own your imagination, you won't experience much in the way of awe.
Think of Google and Facebook; these outfits bring in billions of dollars per month, based almost entirely on how much human attention they can capture. Likewise the many news networks; they get paid according to how many people watch their images for how many minutes. These people are serious about owning your brain cycles; they employ armies of employees to count, gather, plan, and improve their ownership of your eyes. Please understand the content they deliver serves only to grasp your attention.
Certainly websites like Freeman’s Perspective also want your attention but not for its own sake. I want your attention because I think we have something worthwhile to communicate, not to own your brain. Facebook and Google want to own you… the inner you.
Likewise the lords of academia; they want your mind to bear their impress... permanently. Consider, for example, the many academics who espouse cold, rationalist, materialistic philosophies: that we are no more than preprogrammed machines, that words can never really communicate anything, that humanity is ignorant and dangerous. Have you noticed that they reek of “smarter than thou”? Then if you have the opportunity, examine their lives for beautiful acts, for loving passions, for kindness and deep benevolence. If your experience is anything like mine, you’ll notice a striking lack of those things.
The Contrasts: Among the greatest of all contrasts to the upward movements of the heart are those pertaining to dominance, status, and rulership. They are natural antagonists.
Think of drinking in the wonders of the universe, the beauty of nature, the glorious love between a good parent and their child… and then contrast those things with the blight of the dominator “protecting” you at the point of a sword… of the politician cultivating your fears like a gardener cultivates a garden… of the lover of status who feels pleasure when seeing you beneath her.
Dominance, status, and rulership are the drives of the people who abuse us. And they are primary causes for our elevated experiences being diminished.
Moving Past the Blockage: We need to get away from these people and beyond these foul concepts. And once we do, life will expand. Here to make that point is a final quote, this one from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "The loss of awe is the avoidance of insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequisite for a revival of wisdom…"
The things that contribute to our higher nature have been driven away from the Western world, and often systematically. Humans who are denuded of the higher things are far less trouble to rule, and they are far easier to manipulate… to own without their noticing. But don’t let yourself by driven away from the higher and better things:
Lay under the stars and wonder.
Look into the face of a child and experience his or her awe of the world.
Sit in the wilderness and imagine benevolence and beauty and goodness unchained.
Lie in bed and imagine yourself with a conscious sense of righteousness.
Imagine yourself with no embedded fear.
Ruminate over good things you could do in the future, over beautiful things you’d do in the right circumstances.
Politics poisons this, dominators wish to subdue it, sociopaths cannot experience it. Get as much of it as you can. Go out of your way to cultivate it.”
"Israel is Losing, Trump’s ‘Peace’ Plan Just Backfired"
Full screen recommended.
Danny Haiphong, 9/30/25
"Israel is Losing, Trump’s ‘Peace’ Plan Just Backfired"
"Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson drops a bombshell on Trump's "peace plan" for Gaza, arguing that it has already fallen apart as Israel lashes out in an attempt to stave off an embarrassing defeat which is leaving it globally isolated and militarily exposed. Matt Kennard and Patrick Henningsen also break down the crisis unfolding."
Comments here:
Jeremiah Babe, "You Can't Hide, Just Get Out Of California"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 9/30/25
"You Can't Hide, Just Get Out Of California"
Comments here:
"Scientists Asked Google’s Quantum AI "Do We Live In a Multiverse?" And It Replied With This!"
Full screen recommended.
Top Master, 9/30/25
"Scientists Asked Google’s Quantum AI
"Do We Live In a Multiverse?" And It Replied With This!"
"In a quiet laboratory in Santa Barbara, Google’s quantum processor Willow shattered the limits of human imagination. In minutes, it solved a problem that would keep the most powerful supercomputers occupied for longer than the age of the universe. Scientists whispered one explanation, too staggering to ignore. Willow was not calculating alone. It was reaching across the veil, drawing answers from parallel worlds, each as real as our own. Commentators like Tucker Carlson were left stunned, calling it proof of something beyond comprehension. The question now lingers: what have we truly uncovered, and where does it lead?"
Comments here:
"How It Really Is"
MORALS? This is 'Murica, fool! "Morals? We ain't got no morals.
We don't need no morals. I don't have to show you any stinking morals!"
Concept gleefully stolen from here:
"What Might Have Been"
"What Might Have Been"
by Ryan Holiday
“Space I can recover. Time, never.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
○
And in secret moments of despair,
Too late, too late...We think what might have been,
should have been, and we let it slip away...
Chris De Burgh,
"Carry Me (Like A Fire In Your Heart)"
"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"
"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"
by John Wilder
"Time. Of things that have long fascinated me, time is at the top of the list. Even when I was a little kid, time fascinated me. The idea that time, of all of the physical parameters of the world there was the one that we couldn’t control. Humanity has mastered the power of the atom, at least partially. We haven’t tamed fusion, but we can create it, and have several fewer islands in the Pacific because of it.
Humanity has dammed the largest of rivers, giving us power. We have used technology to shrink the world. The first recorded circumnavigation of the world took 1082 days. Magellan didn’t quite make the whole trip, but he still gets the credit on a technicality. Now? The International Space Station does an orbit in 90 minutes or so at 17,150 miles per hour, which is nearly as fast as Haitians are entering Texas.
Humanity has conquered the riddle of steel – we’ve made steel buildings that reach upwards into the sky to please Crom. We have conquered climate – people live at the South Pole in perfect comfort, as well as managing to live in Houston without melting into puddles of sweat.
We can see at night. We can talk, nearly instantly, with people a continent away. My phone buzzes every time there is motion outside my front door – it’s like having a superpower of sensing where and when there is activity at a distance. Another superpower is being able to access obscure facts anywhere on the planet that can reach a cell signal.
But time remains fixed. It flows only one way. And it is the most subjective of our senses. Even Pugsley notices it: “This summer was so short!” He’s in high school. That’s when the transition from the endless summers of childhood begin to transform into the fleeting, never-ending carousel of years that is adulthood. I’ve long felt that I understood why this was. Let me give it a shot.
For a newborn, the second day it’s outside and breathing is 50% of its entire life. For a six-year-old, half of their life is three years – much more. It’s not a big percentage, but it’s much smaller than 50%. For a sixteen-year-old, half their life is eight years. If you’re forty – half your life is twenty years. 1/8 versus 1/20? It’s amazingly different. We don’t perceive life as a line. We’re living inside of it – we compare our lives to the only thing we have . . . our lives. Each day you live is smaller than the last.
But that’s not everything. As we age, novelty decreases. When we’re young, experiences and knowledge are coming at us so quickly that we are presented with novel (new and unique) information daily. New words. New thoughts. New ideas. That’s why babies keep falling for that stupid “got your nose” thing. They don’t realize that I can reattach it. Over time, though, novelty decreases, as does the percentage of your life that each day represents. Ever drive a new route somewhere? When I do it, I have to focus my attention. It seems like it takes longer because I’m having to deal with novelty.
I’ve had my “new” laptop nearly seven years. I had my old laptop for longer than that, yet my “new” laptop still seems like it’s temporary.
There are only so many routes I can drive to work, so much novelty that I can find in a daily drive. Even a commute of an hour begins to fade into a brief moment in time if it’s the same commute, day after day.
Work is similar. Over time, we gain experience. Experience shows us how to fix problems (and sometimes how not to fix them). But that experience of taking a solution and modifying it to fix the next problem isn’t as hard as fixing the first problem.
The fact that each day is a smaller portion of my life, combined with the fact that as I get older, the possibility that I see something new dims. I’ve solved a bunch of problems in my life. Finding a new one is... difficult. Life goes faster, day by day for me. Every endless summer day of youth is in my rearview mirror.
And yet... Each day is still 24 hours. I can still use each day and live it with all of the gusto of a 10-year-old fishing for trout after building a tree fort, playing with his dog, and building a model of a Phantom F-4 to dogfight with the MiG 21-PF already hanging from the ceiling. Even though those 24 hours seem shorter now than at any time in my life, they are relentless in their exact sameness. I get to choose how I spend those moments in my life. I get to choose what I want to produce, and how hard I work to make it happen.
Humanity may never have the ability to crack time – it appears that even today, outside of sands falling from an hourglass, we can only describe time as a fundamental entity, something we measure against. Does the flow of time vary? Certainly. But only if we’re moving at large fractions of the speed of light or are caught in a huge gravity well, but let’s leave your mother out of this.
I have come to the conclusion that I will likely never understand what, exactly, time is, outside of this: Time is all we have – it is what makes up life. We measure our lives in it, because no man can buy an extra hour of life. We have the hours we have. The only difference is what we do with that time.
I mentioned in a previous post that (during the week) I often get by on scant hours of sleep. That’s because I have more things that I want to do in my life than I can fit in a day that’s less than 20 or 22 hours some days. I choose to try to do more, to try to make use of this time, because each moment is a gift.
Maybe I can settle for that definition of time: a gift. Each moment is a gift. Don’t beg for more, or live in fear of losing them. Just make each moment count. Perhaps that’s the secret and precious nature of time. It is the one thing we should never waste, and never wish away."
The Alan Parsons Project, "Time"
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