To be honest, I’m avoiding work. I have review manager up and I am eyeballs deep in writing risk of bias tables about azapirones. Son one has had some tutoring and is trying to recover. Son two is recovered: he’s at high school — and as his older brother observed, in the first two weeks at Uni he has done more work than in his high school career.

So I went and had a look at my old stuff on the wayback machine. It was boring: it can stay there. Then I went over to Traditional Marriage (dead but not blocked: Alte if you are lurking this is still accessible) and noted this description. Written by a woman. About choosing to have children, and loving the mommy track.

I wonder about the role of femininity in women’s career ambitions. I have a decidedly infantile face (no man-jaws here) and a very feminine figure, as do my closest female friends and relatives, and we are all decidedly lacking in ambition. That doesn’t mean that we are lazy — far from it — but we just can’t get excited about climbing career ladders. The very idea bores me to death, and I always felt pestered by people pushing me to “excel”. I just want to putter about my kitchen and my garden.

I actually turned down a promotion to make babies and be provided for. It’s not because I can’t provide for myself, it’s just that I don’t like to; being independent has never held much appeal for me.While other women are eager to do everything for themselves, I’ve always enjoyed having things done for me. I’m more the soft, malleable type who constantly complains about being cold and fatigued (low testosterone levels?), and who is attracted to square jaws and broad shoulders. (Side note: Interestingly my children show a sharp sexual dichotomy, like their parents. My son has very masculine features, a sharp wit — yes, already at 5 years old — and a brooding, stoic, dominating personality. My daughter, on the other hand, has incredibly feminine features — she looks like a doll, and a charming, affectionate, flaky personality.)

Despite being very resourceful and capable, I have that sort of helpless, large-eyed look that makes men rush to my aid. They run up to open the door for me, if my hands are full. If I stand on a street corner and look confused, someone invariably stops to ask me if I need directions. If I trip and fall, they rush over to help. I can get away with murder by staring wide-eyed and innocent. That sort of thing. (Yes, I know that feminists can’t stand such women, but that is how it is.)

Well, yes. It is called being cute. But that does not excuse you from being stupid. Same person, giving a warning.

In my first long-term relationship (LTR), I was a bit silly and narcissistic, but I was otherwise okay. No major damage to my character or soul had yet taken place, and I ended up with a guy that was also pretty okay. We weren’t perfect together, but we were okay, and things probably would have worked out fine if they’d taken their natural course. They didn’t, unfortunately, and after almost 3 years we had a really messy breakup that left us both Severely Damaged Persons (SDP).

Therefore, it’s not surprising that my (and his) second LTR was a nightmare. I passed up completely decent and attractive guys and managed to pick out Mr. Super Jerk. He was a SDP, just like me, so we hit it off immediately. Like attracts like. I used to moan and complain that, “There are no good men left.” What that really means is, “The men I choose are not any good.”

SDP tend to gravitate toward each other. Cock-chasers to skirt-chasers. Gold-diggers to the status hungry. Satanists to Satinists. You get the picture.

Then I “got some religion”, broke up with the SPD, and consciously and deliberately changed what I found desirable in men. I observed the husbands in the happily married couples I knew, and then made a mental list of Good Enough Husband traits that I would look out for.

Then I was confronted by an amazing discovery that some women apparently never make: there are a lot of good men out there!

Not only are there a lot of them, they’re often good-looking, charming, and intelligent. Imagine that! I felt like I’d fallen into some sort of parallel universe, and wondered where these guys had been hiding. Rather than pining away for Mr. Not-So-Perfect, I could merely check out the good men, and attach myself to the one that particularly struck my fancy and found me similarly attractive. Hey, that was really easy.

So, if you keep ending up with crappy people and don’t know what’s wrong: examine yourself. Maybe you’re dating crappy people because you’re sort of crappy yourself.

I know. It really sucks.

Please note that the links may have got malformed in getting this stuff out of the wayback machine. But I think we need to have another round of this. If you look at today’s lectionary post, you will find that a bunch of twits banned a song because it talked about wrath. As if it was all sweetness and light, and that nothing we do matters. Ladies (and gentlemen) ist scheiss.

In the material, in the abstract. In every conceivable way – we are owed nothing. We are entitled to nothing. Maybe it’s been said so many times that the words just whizz right past us, but we really ought to stop and reflect upon this reality.

We are not children. Nobody has to give us anything anymore. We can go hungry, and feel pain, and live without – we will, in fact. And this will be no great injustice because it isn’t anyone’s job to shield us from discomfort in the first place. Nobody promised us a life of ease and pleasure, and if they did they lied.

We have no place to be outraged when we are made to experience some small measure of suffering or sacrifice. This is what it means to exist as a separate, distinct, mature human being. This is what it means be alive. The world has left bumps and bruises on everyone, why should we be the exception? Even if we can think of a reason, it doesn’t matter. We won’t be the exception. Why would we even want to be?

So, if you are hanging around with people who depress you, change yourself or change them. If you are self defeated, do something to get moving in the correct direction. If you change how you live and act, different doors will open.

But please do not blame the previous generations. Yes, they are self absorbed twits: I am a late boomer and I think I despise the Steve Jobs of this world (just enough NewAgery to sound cool, just enough psychopathy to exploit everyone around them) far more than you do. But the guys in the 50s, like me, who are trying to make things run are sitting at the bottom of the mountain looking at a shit snowball that started rolling while they were in primary school. It is going to be nasty: I don’t (unlike HL) consider all this is a conspiracy, but instead incompetence, but the consequences in the USA will be dire.

There are some fundamental differences between the state of the USA Inc. and Argentina in 2000-2001, just prior to their economic collapse.

We probably have the most heavily armed populace the world has ever seen. When the SHTF, it’s going to be a total warzone once fighting over the basics of survival commences. I have family members who are staunchly “anti-gun” and are utterly opposed to anyone owning guns. They always vote for gun control politicians, and always challenge and question my beliefs and ownership of numerous weapons.

Yet they have food storage and are preparing for possible societal catastrophe (not because they believe as I do, but rather due to past experiences with hurricane preparedness). When I tell them they are just creating storehouses for the looters with guns to come and take it from them when the SHTF, they act like they don’t even hear what I’m saying. It’s cognitive dissonance at it’s worst. Don’t let your political ideology get in the way of your preparedness. You think the cops are minutes away from saving you NOW, imagine what it will be like when the cops are in the midst of society wide rioting and unrest?

There will be no one coming to save you.

What can you do? Well, I made a move to live in Dunedin some years ago to in part find a safe sustainable town that would be safe for my boys. At some personal cost. I don’t have gold: NZ state debt is well under 50% of the GDP and we are (currently) paying our way. If the cactus gets thrown through the dunny, NZ will feed itself.

But I don’t live in Auckland: it has two hundred ethnicities and in crisis it will shatter. I live in a town with a tribal identity, driven by seven generations of Maori, Chinese and Scottish settlers intermarrying. As an import: I will be an ex-Aucklander until I die down here: my sons may be accounted as locals, for they attended a local high school.

I live somewhere that makes its own food and is not dependent on a centralized system of distribution (we learned not to do that after the Christchurch earthquake). Moreover, we are somewhat armed, but not heavily so.

If you are in the USA, be where the crowds are not, and practice your hunting skills, including the eating of what you kill. As well as the habits of simplicity, frugality, and quiet living. For the government fears their serfs with good reason: they have their AR-15s and they will not register them.

And please do not pretend, if you live in the USA, that you are poor, or oppressed. If you have had two meals today you are not poor. If you have a weathertight home, that is not flooding, with running water and power, you are rich — as I write this, Christchurch has just been flooded, and even in my quite well off country there are people who lack these things (Let us say that I live on the side of a caldera for a reason). If you can speak freely, you are not oppressed.

So use these things to do good: to serve others, and to provide for your family. Listen hard to the truth, particularly when it hurts and you are offended. Do not be a member of the club that sees everything as unfair and oppressive.

There is beauty in this world, seek it. There is truth, find it. There are blessings, share them.