I'm in danger

Dear Diary

Nothing serious. I just have to be a little extra careful. I can’t talk about it until it’s over. Could be December, no later than February. I will have more time to write from now on, but it’ll be general and abstract stuff and not diary entries. Have to be a little careful about some things.

Things are going good. Work is all right. No gf. Body building is going great. I’m getting big. I’m getting more religious. I’m getting more stable.

I’m working on several articles. I don’t know if it’s considered rude to say before they do, but I might soon be going on some internet radio shows. I’ll link stuff when that happens.

Works in progress are, art history article about caricature, more entries in the finding God series, dave chapelle drama, critique of the restaurant industry, and the Joss Whedon question. I’m working on a short novella based on my career as a jazz pianist.

I think a lot about drives lately. I don’t have the same drive as I did years ago to just post every thought I have. Only if its something I consider of “high quality”, and my initial drive to all this internet stuff in general was the exact opposite. The core of posting is the throwaway thought. I know I could get away with a lot, and that this is probably in some part an excuse.

I’ve been reading about orthodox Christianity and it’s in a big way zapping my “creative drive”, so to speak. Writing was always a kind of thinking to me - of figuring things out, as I write. I find I have less stuff to figure out now, and things like, “exposing how x social phenomena works” doesn’t seem as pressing to me as before. There’s not the same sense of pressure that I try to find relief from. I feel that it is degrading to even talk about, for example, the dave chapelle drama.

“they dont want to win - they just want you to play their game”. They just want you to engage. I gave it a bad name. I should have named it some kind of fallacy, so redditors would use it. But I didn’t and I wont. The best way of saying it is still “they dont want to win, they just want you to play their game”.

Shortest possible example: The term “terf”, “trans exclusionary radical feminist” - the point of this terminology is to sneak in the implication that “radical feminist” is the norm (structurally, in the sentence, it is). If you accept the premises and you deny that you are a “terf”, you implicitly affirm that you are a “rf”.

That’s the game, and that’s what’s going on everyone. It’s their only move. Apply this principle to all of culture war shit and you can’t unsee it. Weaponized passive aggression. They invite you to kick them while they’re down, but have covered themselves in shit, so that when you do, you get shit on your shoe.

They “fail upwards”, because the instant you engage on their premises, you internalise their assumptions, and you too get covered in shit. and before you know it, without even thinking, you find yourself lying on the ground inviting people to kick you, filled with glee and schadenfreude that you’ll get their shoes messy.

My problem with normal people is I often feel, whether right or wrong, that I know more about someone than they know about themselves after talking to them for 5 minutes, which feels vulgar, rude, improper. I feel bad about it, if I’m right I’m a voyeur, and I’m failing in my duty to lead and help them. If I’m wrong I’m incredibly rude and arrogant. The problem with perverts is I know more about them than they know about themselves, before even meeting them.

Everyone agrees that what is needed going forward is a proactive aspirational drive, something that is not merely reactionary, but something generative. Rather than playing the same games we have been playing for the last 10 years, I think we should try to focus on simply creating beautiful things. My internet friend Ev wrote something I think is beautiful.

2 weeks