Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire", Live at Royal Albert Hall, London
Full screen suggested.
So, we rise from the rubble...
Monday, November 23, 2020
"A Look to the Heavens"
"To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula spans about 100 light years and lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus).
The featured image, shown in scientifically assigned colors, was captured recently in a 12-hour exposure. The star cluster Collinder 249 is visible embedded in the nebula's glowing gas. Although difficult to discern here, several dark molecular clouds with distinct shapes can be found inside the nebula."
"For Nothing Is Fixed..."
"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."
- James Baldwin
"We are fast moving into something, we are fast flung into something like asteroids cast into space by the death of a planet, we the people of earth are cast into space like burning asteroids and if we wish not to disintegrate into nothingness we must begin to now hold onto only the things that matter while letting go of all that doesn't. For when all of our dust and ice deteriorates into the cosmos we will be left only with ourselves and nothing else. So if you want to be there in the end, today is the day to start holding onto your children, holding onto your loved ones; onto those who share your soul. Harbor and anchor into your heart justice, truth, courage, bravery, belief, a firm vision, a steadfast and sound mind. Be the person of meaningful and valuable thoughts. Don't look to the left, don't look to the right; we simply don't have the time. Never be afraid of fear."
- C. JoyBell C
"Life Does Not Require Us To Be..."
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do
as you damn well please. And with it comes the only
basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
- P. J. O'Rourke
"Compassion and Enabling"
"Compassion and Enabling"
by admin
"Sometimes there is a very blurry line between feeling and expressing compassion, and enabling someone. Showing compassion is giving someone space and understanding so they can work through their predicament whilst remaining at a healthy emotional distance. This healthy emotional distance can be hard to judge in close knit relationships such as marriage and families. For should one fall over the edge of compassion and into the field of pity, neither party will benefit. Pity serves no one in relation to creating the desired changes within relationships of any kind.
Somewhere in between the blurry lines of compassion and pity lies the process labeled as enabling. Enabling is an overdose of compassion. When compassion distorts into pity, the individual is assisted in continuing with behavioral traits that clearly do not serve either party with regards to emotional, mental and psychical health.
People become enabled to continue their damaging behavioral traits via beloved others wearing the mask of compassion. The beloved other becomes drawn into the vacuum of the sufferer’s reality. Unknowingly, they begin to slip into pity, whilst believing that they are still expressing compassion. Once a person becomes drawn into the illusion of the other person’s reality they begin to make excuses for themselves as a means of justifying the abuse they are committing. They are enabling the sufferer, therefore abusing the sufferer, whilst they wear the mask of compassion. For anyone who is assisting the abuser, via allowing the abuser to continue on their discourse without obstruction, using (false) compassion (pity) as a reason, is ultimately abusing and damaging the abuser even more. And they are also damaging themselves.
Now this sounds all good and fine in theory from the clear perspective of the unattached observer, but what of the person in the eye of the tornado. What of the mother whose daughter is severely addicted to drugs? And what of the husband who must cope with the severe depression of his wife?
Compassion and pity become extremely difficult to distinguish in such circumstances. One’s own belief systems become strained and one starts to question the integrity of their own reality. Little by little people begin to compromise themselves in order to compensate for the others distorted behavioral traits. This is pity and pity is abuse. These self compromises come from one’s own false belief that they alone are responsible for ensuring that the abuser is healed. They take the false responsibility on board based on ethics and morals they have adopted from society or other people, meanwhile their intuition, (their inner truth) screams at them telling them that this does not feel right.
When one indulges another’s reality long enough via pity, one cannot help become exposed to deteriorating emotional and psychological states. This is the clearest sign that you have been enabling someone. If you are showing someone genuine compassion then your psychological and emotion health will not be affected.
When you find yourself constantly dwelling over another’s situation as well as altering your psychological and emotional states to compensate for another’s predicament, then you are enabling someone. This for most people is too harsh a reality to admit, especially when the person is very close to you. Usually one’s entire belief system is based on giving love and helping another, yet when love and compassion distort into pity and enabling, we are simply forgetting to love ourselves first, and in doing so, we hurt the other instead.
On the surface this may sound selfish, yet the underlying truth is that we cannot help another, unless we love ourselves correctly first. Another harsh reality is that you are responsible for no one but yourself. Compassion allows someone the opportunity to realize this even in the mist of immense suffering. Pity enables another to disperse responsibility away from themselves and onto another, which helps and heals no one.
There are no definitive guidelines to judge whether you are expressing compassion or enabling someone. But perhaps the question you could ask yourself is; if I continue to live with my present emotional and mental states, will this affect my overall health in the future? If you can honestly answer ‘no’, then you are expressing compassion. If you can’t honestly say ‘no’, then perhaps you need to step back a touch and love yourself more, and then you will have a clearer perspective in regards to the other, and what the other really requires."
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"Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion... is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception."
- Sharon Salzberg
"Wonder..."
"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."
- "Grey's Anatomy"
Gregory Mannarino, "Mannarino On The Verge Of FRENZY, Market Going To Pluto, And Here Is Why"
Gregory Mannarino,
"Mannarino On The Verge Of FRENZY,
Market Going To Pluto, And Here Is Why"
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Related:
"Acceptance..."
"Acceptance is a crucial step forward for those who prefer the idea of living this life over simply existing within it. Accept all that you've said and what you've done, because you cannot change your past. Accept the idea of the unknown, because the future is the unknown waiting patiently to reveal itself. Accept the person you have become thus far in your journey, because you are the only person who will be there with you when you finish it. Do all of this so that you may never find yourself having to accept regret that haunts you at two a.m., leaving you sweaty and broken hearted. All you have is this minute; not this hour, or this day, or this year. Live in this minute so that you won't get stuck simply existing with your guilty past, or with nothing but anxiety for the future."
- Margaret E. Rise
"Georgia BOMBSHELL Edison Data Analysis – BIDEN takes MINIMUM 98% of a 23,487 vote batch at 12:18AM – Impossible!"
Full screen mode recommended.
"Georgia BOMBSHELL: Edison Data Analysis – BIDEN
takes MINIMUM 98% of a 23,487 vote batch at 12:18AM – Impossible!"
by The Epoch Times
"Biden's lead in Georgia is only 12,781 votes.
- This analysis is based on official timestamped election night data from Edison Research which was obtained from the NYT website.
- This batch of 23,487 votes went, at an exact absolute minimum, 97.9779% for Biden.
- This batch was uploaded at 12:18AM EST on Nov 4.
- This is not a case of updating one candidate at a time; we can see from looking at the surrounding batches that Trump did not receive any corresponding entries.
- According to official data released by the state of Georgia, the county in which Biden received the highest percentage of total absentee by mail votes was Dekalb County at 86.39% (a whole other can of worms).
- That makes this batch of votes extremely suspect, even if every single allowance is made with the minimum number of votes gained and assuming it's 100% mail in from the most heavily D county.
- There are likely thousands of questionable votes in this batch.
The ballots that comprised this batch should and must be obtained and independently audited (i.e. not by city officials) as soon as possible. Nine witnesses of the recently completed Georgia audit, including at least one registered Democrat, swore to have seen suspiciously pristine, uncreased mail ballots, uniformly and perfectly filled out, almost always for Biden. In one case, a batch of such ballots included 500 ballots in a row all cast for Biden. Is there a relation?"
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Related:
"Talkin’ Turkey"
"Talkin’ Turkey"
by Jim Kunstler
"Only a few years ago, the nation seemed sturdy enough that its very existence would not be called to question. Now, not so much. In 2016, the elite, blue, coastal oligarchy was too smugly self-satisfied with its correctness-in-all-things - especially its right to power - to bother rigging the election beyond the usual urban ward-level hijinks in the usual places. But then, Hillary lost to Mr. Trump via the inside straight of his bagging the swing states electoral votes without winning the national popular vote.
They sure weren’t going to let that happen again, and thus the weird spectacle this time of wee hour vote-tallying suspensions followed by improbable ballot pump-and-dumps in favor of Ol’ White Joe Biden, the most inert, empty, uncharismatic presidential candidate ever conjured by any conclave of scheming cabalists in US history. (Next to Joe Biden, Warren G. Harding was an American Augustus.) And so, the 2020 vote was rigged to the rafters, just to make sure that the outcome this time would bend towards the Democrats’ beloved arc of justice.
The legal battle over that brazen theft has incited some exciting fightin’ phrases, mostly coming from freelance attorney Sidney Powell, an informal adjunct to the president’s official lawyers, Jenna Ellis and Rudy Giuliani. Miz Powell has promised to “release the kraken” and “blow up Georgia” in a “Biblical” firestorm of fatal writs, “fixing to overturn the results of this election” - leaving us early this week in the spooky eye of post-election sturm-and-drang, with the real action yet to come.
The president and the RNC lost a bunch of state court cases the past week and, naturally, that discouraged the pro-Trump troops across “red” America - which is mostly everything between Hackensack and Fresno. But these weak pleadings might have been designed to simply speed the process through the states so as to get the main arguments before the US Supreme Court, namely, that the foreign-owned Dominion vote tabulation company was pre-programmed to overcome any Trump lead; that the Dominion software was originally created to queer elections and indeed used many times to do just that in foreign lands; and that US election officials with their poll-worker grunts in select states connived to cover the fraud with as many unverifiable write-in votes as the job required.
If the SCOTUS agrees to hear the case - a big “if” - they may be extremely reluctant to rule affirmatively because 1) they’ll be venturing into a poorly-mapped constitutional frontier, and 2) the recent confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, installing a conservative super-majority on the court, will look as much like a setup to the red staters as the Dominion vote fraud looks like a setup to the blues. But then, if the case is strong enough, SCOTUS does have the legal prerogative to de-certify state elections, sinking both candidates below the 270 electoral vote mark and rolling the giant, reeking hairball into the House of Representatives where Mr. Trump would enjoy a distinct advantage. Cue Antifa and BLM…
It’s not known exactly what further evidence Miz Powell and the president’s lawyers will bring to the SCOTUS - beyond what has already surfaced on the Internet, which is pretty eyebrow-raising. The news media has made a big show of calling for it, and caviling loudly when the lawyers say they’re holding back until the court is ready to entertain the case. It’s hard to imagine that Miz Powell and Mr. Giuliani would sacrifice their reputations on some kind of bluff. Anyway, what’s to bluff in this game? I don’t believe this trio would bring a whiffle bat to a gunfight.
One result of these final innings in the contest will be the delegitimizing of Ol’ White Joe Biden as president, should his forces finally prevail. Half of America will not only refuse to buy it, but it will incite a counter-resistance on the right as determined as Hillary’s pussyhat brigades and bureaucrat activists of the post-2016 era, and possibly more bloodthirsty, especially if the left makes a move to confiscate guns. The prospect of Joe Biden functioning as president is a joke, anyway. Have you forgotten his non-campaign campaign? The empty parking lots with the white circles? The pitiful gaffes? And lurking in this fog of war is the all that odious monkey business selling influence abroad involving crack-head son Hunter and the rest of the Biden family. Think that’s going away?
What you’d actually get with a Biden “victory” is a Deep State junta of malicious, coercive, and vengeance-crazed characters such as John Brennan, Andrew Weissmann, Nancy Pelosi, Susan Rice, and Adam Schiff, with Barack Obama hovering somewhere backstage, commanding this-and-that - even if President Ole White Joe is shoved aside on account of mental incompetence, leaving Kamala Harris in the Oval Office to giggle through the next four years while she orchestrates junior-high-school style mean girl campaigns against the enemies of Wokesterism. The DC “blob” has demonstrated that it doesn’t need no steenkin’ president to work its wicked will.
Meanwhile, have a lovely Home Alone Thanksgiving, if you are dutifully following the orders of Governors Cuomo, Pritzker, Whitmer, Murphy, and Newsom. We’ll dare to have seven at the table here, and therefore not have to eat some reincarnation of turkey for three weeks afterward. As a holiday bonus, I leave you with a little burlesque submitted by a reader wishing to remain anonymous for your amusement, as follows…"
Click image for larger size.
"The 'Great Reset' And The Risk Of Greater Interventionism"
"The 'Great Reset' And The Risk Of Greater Interventionism"
by Daniel Lacalle
"Global debt is expected to soar to a record $277 trillion by the end of the year, according to the Institute of International Finance. Developed markets’ total debt -government, corporate and households- jumped to 432% of GDP in the third quarter. Emerging market debt-to-GDP hit nearly 250% in the third quarter, with China reaching 335%, and for the year the ratio is expected to reach about 365% of global GDP. Most of this massive increase of $15 trillion in one year comes from government and corporates’ response to the pandemic. However, we must remember that the total debt figure already reached record-highs in 2019 before any pandemic and in a period of growth.
The main problem is that most of this debt is unproductive debt. Governments are using the unprecedented fiscal space to perpetuate bloated current spending, which generates no real economic return, so the likely outcome will be that debt will continue to rise after the pandemic crisis is ended and that the level of growth and productivity achieved will not be enough to reduce the financial burden on public accounts.
In this context, The World Economic Forum has presented a roadmap for what has been called “The Great Reset”. It is a plan that aims to take the current opportunity to “to shape an economic recovery and the future direction of global relations, economies, and priorities”. According to the World Economic Forum, the world must also adapt to the current reality by “directing the market to fairer results, ensure investments are aimed at mutual progress including accelerating ecologically friendly investments, and to start a fourth industrial revolution, creating digital economic and public infrastructure”. These objectives are obviously shared by all of us, and the reality shows that the private sector is already implementing these ideas, as we see technology, renewable investments and sustainability plans thriving all over the world.
We are witnessing in real time the proof that businesses adapt rapidly and provide better goods and services at affordable prices for everyone achieving a level of progress in environmental targets and welfare that would be unthinkable if governments were in charge. This crisis shows that the world has escaped the risk of scarcity and hyperinflation thanks to a private sector that has surpassed all expectations in a seemingly unsurmountable crisis.
The overall message of the World Economic Forum sounds promising. There is only three words that spoils the entire positive message: “directing the market”. The risk of governments taking these ideas to promote massive interventionism is not small. The idea of The Great Reset has been quickly embraced by the most bureaucratic and government-intervened economies as a validation of rising government implication in the economy. However, this is incorrect.
The idea that governments will promote an economic system that reduces inflation, improves competition, and empowers citizens is more than far-fetched. As such, the World Economic Forum cannot ignore the government intervention risk within this idea of a Great Reset that does not need to be enforced as it has already been in place for years.
Technology, competition and open markets will do more for sustainability, social welfare and the environment than government action, because even the best intentioned governments will try to defend at any cost three things that go against the well-intentioned messages of the World Economic Forum: Governments will continue to try to defend their national champions, a rising inflation and more control of the economy. Those three things work against the idea of a new world with better and more affordable goods and services for all, with better welfare, lower unemployment and a thriving high-productivity private sector.
We should always be worried about well-intentioned ideas when the first ones to embrace them are those who are against freedom and competition.
There is an even darker part. Many interventionists have welcomed this proposal as an opportunity to wipe out the debt. It all sounds nice until we understand what it really entails. There is an enormous risk that governments will use the excuse of cancelling part of their debt with a decision to cancel a large part of our savings. We must remember that this is not even a conspiracy theory. Most proponents of the Modern Monetary Theory start their premise by stating that government deficits are matched by households and private sector savings, so there is no problem… Well, the only minor problem (note the irony) is matching one’s debt with another one’s savings. If we understand the global monetary system, we will then understand that erasing trillions of government debt would also mean erasing trillions of citizens’ savings.
The idea of a more sustainable, cleaner, and social economic system is not new, and it does not need governments to impose it. It is happening as we speak thanks to competition and technology. Governments should not be allowed to reduce and limit citizens’ freedom, savings, and real wages even for a well-intentioned promise. The best way to ensure that governments or large corporations are not going to use this excuse to eliminate freedom and individual rights is by promoting free markets and more competition. Forward-thinking investments and welfare-enhancing ideas do not need to be nudged or imposed; consumers are already making companies all over the world implement increasingly higher sustainability and environmentally friendly policies. This market-oriented approach is more successful than letting the risk of interventionism and government-meddling take hold, because once it happens it is almost impossible to undo.
If we want a more sustainable world, we need to defend sound money policies and less government intervention. Free markets, not governments, will make this world better for all. The same massive government intervention that took us here is not going to take us out of here."
"Market Fantasy Updates 11/23/20"
"Market Fantasy Updates 11/23/20"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Updated live.
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Daily Update (Nov. 23rd to 25th)
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Insanity...
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And now... The End Game...
"What Better Truth..."
"Why do human beings have the peculiar impression
that belief is the same as truth?"
"Because sometimes the truth hurts.
Sometimes we need to believe in a better truth."
"What better truth can there be than truth?"
- Gene Brewer
"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 11/23/20"
NOV 23, 2020 4:15 PM: "New York Reopens Overflow Ward On Staten Island As COVID Hospitalizations Surge: Live Updates"
NOV 23, 2020 1:31 PM: "Italy's COVID-19 Deaths Top 50k; Regeneron To Deliver 300k Antibody Doses By January: Live Updates"
NOV 23, 2020 5:00 AM: "COVID Deaths Mount In France & The Czech Republic As Lockdowns Fail"
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Nov. 23, 2020 7:55 AM ET:
The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 58,675,400
people, according to official counts, including 12,313,717 Americans.
At least 1,387,300 have died.
Nov. 23, 2020 7:55 AM ET:
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count◆
Updated 11/23/20, 6:27 AM ET
Click image for larger size.
"Welcome To The Interregnum"
"Welcome To The Interregnum"
by Chris Martenson
"We’re between things. It’s an uncomfortable place. We are transitioning from an old story into a new one and that has folks feeling anxious. By “we” I mean everyone on the planet. If you find yourself with a deep sense of unease, yet unable to quite pin it down, you will find this article extremely helpful.
The old story of endless growth on a finite planet is winding down. Whatever replaces it won’t be a continuation of the past. Things are going to have to change, whether we like it or not. Put more bluntly: the easy times are over, and a period of disruption has begun. It may be many years or even decades before thing truly settle into a new equilibrium (of sorts – there really isn’t any such thing in this ever-changing universe). The old will fall away even before the new has arrived. That process has already begun, hence the nervousness, anger, and fear.
My day job is serving as an information scout, an ambassador of the unknown, and because of that I’m acutely aware of the degree to which people are already worn down, burnt out, and unable to process any more. Folks are so exhausted by the trials and tribulations dished up by the crazy-making machine fondly referred to as “2020,” that many are paralyzed. Unable to take new actions because they are overwhelmed.
Yet, as I wrote recently, no choice IS a choice. When so much is changing and so much is on the line, remaining frozen with anxiety is as much a determinant of your future prospects as taking swift action – each sets one down different paths promising different outcomes.
Truthfully, there is much that can be done that will contribute to a more resilient future for yourself and for the world. But first we have to know where we are. We have to sketch out the map as best we can, even if the edges remain blanks with little more than “there be monsters” scribed at the borders.
To orient properly, you must be aware of the idea that the Age of Growth is over. We are now entering a Post-Growth era. Our task now is to settle into a very different existence – one with fewer ‘things’ and less ‘stuff’, but also offering more meaning and worthy challenges. Like any good adventure, a little danger is involved. But nothing quite so dangerous to your soul’s journey as wasting your life on trivial pursuits.
The Interregnum: The gap between reigns when the old king has died but the new successor has yet to be decided is called an interregnum. It can also refer to the gap between first learning of something and then finally understanding its deeper significance:
in·ter·reg·num, noun: a period when normal government is suspended, especially between successive reigns or regimes. An interval or pause between two periods of office or other things. “the interregnum between the discovery of radioactivity and its detailed understanding”
I love this word because it perfectly matches our current state. One feature of an interregnum, where power hangs in the balance, is that it’s a very uncertain time. Anxiety rules the day because nobody knows how things might land. It could be good for them personally, or very bad. The old king was good. His successor son is an already hated petty tyrant. Perhaps a different, better successor will somehow manage to claim the throne instead…
This sort of uncertainty is a potent source of anxiety. Which is why an interregnum is the cradle of people’s most deep-seated fears. The old king is gone. Nobody knows who or what is in charge right now. Is it humanity’s deep technological prowess or is it Mother Nature herself?
Does our destiny lie in our own hands or have the die already been cast and we’re simply awaiting to see how unfortunate of a roll it’s going to be? Is there still time to sort out a decent solution to our many predicaments and problems, or have those moments already been wasted? Nobody knows at this moment. But the uncertainty is hanging thick. Corrosive. Emotional. Explosive. Welcome to the interregnum. May the odds ever be in your favor.
Demoralization: Now while the above may sound depressing, as I’ve written before the better term is demoralizing, and there’s a very important distinction between the two terms.
Depression is a reaction to current circumstances. It can be treated with talk therapy to resolve an inner conflict, or temporary chemical rebalancing.
Demoralization, on the other hand, is what you experience when your cognitive map no longer aligns with the actual circumstances of life:
"Rather than a depressive disorder, demoralization is a type of existential disorder associated with the breakdown of a person’s ‘cognitive map’. It is an overarching psycho-spiritual crisis in which victims feel generally disoriented and unable to locate meaning, purpose or sources of need fulfillment.
The world loses its credibility, and former beliefs and convictions dissolve into doubt, uncertainty and loss of direction. Frustration, anger and bitterness are usual accompaniments, as well as an underlying sense of being part of a lost cause or losing battle. The label ‘existential depression’ is not appropriate since, unlike most forms of depression, demoralization is a realistic response to the circumstances impinging on the person’s life."
(Source)
"Did you catch that? Demoralization is actually a realistic response under certain conditions. Those conditions are manifesting themselves now. Which means that the waves of dispiriting statistics we’re seeing are not ‘bad’; they are telling us something important.
People are right to be deeply disturbed by the ways in which the main narrative of their culture no longer maps to reality. Worse, the Endless Growth narrative is killing life on this planet and therefore harming each of us in ways both overt and subtle. More and more people are detecting that, and that’s a good thing. Because that’s the necessary first step in crafting a new narrative and adopting a different model that hopefully serves us better.
We often say here at Peak Prosperity that if you’re feeling anxiety (or demoralization), it means that there’s a gap between what you know and what you’re doing. Since you can’t unlearn something, your best course of action is to change your behavior. To take action to better align what you know with what you do.
I totally get the frustration, anger and bitterness on display in politics all across the West right now, but these are almost universally misdirected at the wrong targets. Whether by intent or accident, this is usually the case and heavily supported by a media system that actually promotes divisiveness over unity, and isolation over connection."
Bottom line: If you are demoralized there’s nothing wrong with you. But there is definitely something wrong with the larger situation. If you know someone who is demoralized, don’t try to ‘fix’ them by helping them fit back into their old lives better. The problem isn’t with their ability to adapt. The problem is they are already adapting to what is coming. They’re ahead of the curve, not behind it. They just see the new curve before you do.
With that critical framing for the word demoralization, we can now go a bit deeper. But first, I want to introduce an important term relating to demoralization: Zozobra. It describes a potent sensation one might experience during an interregnum, especially if demoralization is in play.
Zozobra: I came across this article very recently and have now read it a few times. It’s pitch perfect. It neatly captures the context of demoralization. By naming it we can begin to understand it, know its presence, and reduce its unconscious hold on us:
"There’s a word for your overwhelming anxiety, and it’s “zozobra”
Nov 3rd, 2020:
Ever had the feeling that you can’t make sense of what’s happening? One moment everything seems normal, then suddenly the frame shifts to reveal a world on fire, struggling with pandemic, recession, climate change, and political upheaval. That’s “zozobra,” the peculiar form of anxiety that comes from being unable to settle into a single point of view, leaving you with questions like: Is it a lovely autumn day, or an alarming moment of converging historical catastrophes?
The word “zozobra” is an ordinary Spanish term for “anxiety” but with connotations that call to mind the wobbling of a ship about to capsize. The term emerged as a key concept among Mexican intellectuals in the early 20th century to describe the sense of having no stable ground and feeling out of place in the world. This feeling of zozobra is commonly experienced by people who visit or immigrate to a foreign country: the rhythms of life, the way people interact, everything just seems “off” – unfamiliar, disorienting and vaguely alienating.
According to the philosopher Emilio Uranga (1921-1988), the telltale sign of zozobra is wobbling and toggling between perspectives, being unable to relax into a single framework to make sense of things. As Uranga describes it in his 1952 book “Analysis of Mexican Being”: “Zozobra refers to a mode of being that incessantly oscillates between two possibilities, between two affects, without knowing which one of those to depend on… indiscriminately dismissing one extreme in favor of the other. In this to and fro the soul suffers, it feels torn and wounded.”
What makes zozobra so difficult to address is that its source is intangible. It is a soul-sickness not caused by any personal failing, nor by any of the particular events that we can point to. Instead, it comes from cracks in the frameworks of meaning that we rely on to make sense of our world - the shared understanding of what is real and who is trustworthy, what risks we face and how to meet them, what basic decency requires of us and what ideals our nation aspires to. (Source)
What ‘cracks in the framework of meaning’ could be more profound than facing the collapse of – well – everything? Our many predicaments exist at all levels from top to bottom. There’s no safe level on which to ride out the coming storm. There’s nowhere to run. There’s only right where you are.
When everything seems “off” – unfamiliar, disorienting and vaguely alienating, then you’re in some sort of foreign land. You are out of bounds, off all of your known maps. There’s no sense of place, nowhere to settle down. Zozobra. When everything is wobbling and up for grabs, you wouldn’t be entirely human if you weren’t experiencing some sort of emotional unease. AS with the adjustment reaction, an emotional arc is simply a part of the process. Both unavoidable and necessary. Those who navigate uncertainty best are those who process the quickest. As always, having a good mental map, and the right terms, is helpful to that process.
Conclusion: If you are feeling nervous, angry or fearful – congratulations! – there’s nothing at all wrong with you. In fact, your senses are operating normally, and your cognition is on the mark. You are having an adjustment reaction, your cognitive map has a better grasp on reality than your culture, and zozobra is par for the course. The most valuable part of naming and understanding these things is that they lose their ability to paralyze you with dread.
Our emotions are not “the truth”, but rather uncomfortable sensations that serve as an early warning system. They are like a quantum processor able to parse through massively complex systems and situations way before our cortex can offer any guidance. There’s also a comfort – a relief – that comes from understanding that our reactions are both perfectly normal and perfectly healthy. There’s nothing that requires treatment. Nothing that requires medication. Nothing at all to be done about any of it. Except knowing what it is, getting past whatever paralysis might exist as rapidly as possible, and then taking action.
Because you alone can’t alter the larger trends of ecological destruction, monetary printing, insane political responses, etc. and so forth, all that truly remains is for you to align your actions with what you know to be true. And there’s so much to be done. Soils need to be rebuilt. Waste streams reformed into nutrient loops. Energy efficiency to be built into the next generation of – everything. The lists are as endless as they are exciting. And you can play a role, both at the individual level as well as contributing positively at the collective one.
Yes, there’s a “great reset” coming. Whether it will be controlled and precise or a nature-driven chaotic mess remains to be seen. But right now, you need to make a choice: You can either actively shape your future or wait to be shaped by it.
I’m all about controlling what I can and leaving the rest behind. Maybe you are, too. If so, then you’re part of our tribe here at Peak Prosperity. We’re busying preparing for what is increasingly likely to consist of more macro chaos than control. You know, to avoid being demoralized with an overwhelming sense of zozobra during this interregnum.
In "Part 2: Moving Ahead With Purpose, Optimism & Grace" we provide further essential grounding for persevering through the coming change, and I share the latest steps that I’m taking in my own personal life to dive head-first into the interregnum with positive and enthusiastic intent.
I plan to meet the future on my terms. Will you?
Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)."
Sunday, November 22, 2020
Must Watch! “Warning! Businesses Vaporized; Tent Cities Everywhere; Stock Market All Time Highs; So Cal Troubles”
Jeremiah Babe,
“Warning! Businesses Vaporized; Tent Cities Everywhere;
Stock Market All Time Highs; So Cal Troubles”
Full screen recommended.
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