Sledding on top of one another. Holding each other’s children. Being close with friends.
This Is What We Are Supposed To Look Like
What Are We Doing?
The Lockdowns don’t save lives. How many stay-at-home people are testing positive? Hoe many people trapped in care facilities have died? This is the season of respiratory infection. It won’t end until sometime in Spring. What will our society look like after a year of this?
From Tom Woods:
I just read a Florida reporter talking about a rise in hospitalizations in our state.
Is there some isolated issue in Florida right now?
Or are hospitalizations rising everywhere, regardless of policy?
No answer, of course.
Remember, too:
In Florida there are no restrictions on private gatherings, no restrictions on bars and restaurants, no restrictions on churches, no restrictions on gyms, and no curfews or stay-at-home orders.
Florida also has the fifth-oldest population in the country (as opposed to California, at 44th).
Yet in a graph of maybe a dozen states’ current hospitalizations per million, I see Florida doing better than such blue, “follow-the-science,” ruin-people’s-lives states as New York, California, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and New Jersey.
Are any of those places going to be criticized?
You already know the answer.
We are living through the craziest moment in our lifetimes. Almost nobody is being rational, and almost nobody can even be trusted to report data properly.
I will never want to live “off the grid,” because I’d hate it, but I definitely want to live in a way that doesn’t rely on crazy people.
Hence my various businesses, all of which are insulated against the crazies.
I sat down and recorded over-the-shoulder videos of how you can do this. It’s called Net Profits Academy.
Coupon code woods lowers the price from $47 to a mere $19.95, but it expires at midnight.
Go learn:
http://www.tomwoods.com/woodstheteacher
Tom Woods
A Darker Delaware
I don’t know how businesses will survive the latest restrictions, especially when they are given one business day to comply and threatened with a zero tolerance policy.
I don’t know if more people will rebel, or if more people will break under the rules. I feel close to breaking.
I don’t think serious consideration is given to those who are in difficult positions: single parents fighting to provide a healthy and positive environment for their children, grandparents and great-grandparents who may be isolated for their last holiday season, the people who have lost jobs and businesses, those struggling with addiction and depression, and every single human who has been shamed and insulted in this terrible Lockdown.
I go to sleep tonight with a weight on my chest. I will pray for peace and guidance. I will ask for wisdom and clarity as I have done repeatedly over the last nine months. I am ever hopeful, but that hope is thinning.
Dark December
A lot of Facebook memories popped up today. 2018 an 2019 were tough, but they finished in quietly spectacular ways.
I’m in a low place. It feels like there is more loss than gain this month. More isolation and loneliness. Too many deeply personal emotions to share with clear words.
This is the place when the light is dim and the wood is dark. I’ve been through enough of these dark nights to know how bright the sun is on the other side. I don’t wait for it, I push into the ever darkening path, for that is the way to the light.
The Costs
This week I read a post from a Lockdown-enforcing friend. She said that she would be avoiding those who are not strictly complying after “this” is over. Firstly, what is the metric for that? When do we stop trading germs, bacteria, and viruses? When do we stop sharing bad habits? When do we stop poisoning minds with ideas we deem “bad?” When do we stop being human and fallen and full of snakes and mistakes?
Aside from the philosophical absurdity of pretending that humans (and eveything else in existence) aren’t dangerous, I’m deeply troubled. Her children have been friends with mine for years. Her and I have stood as vocal homeschooling advocates and I consider her an ally in promoting educational freedom. We disagree on fundamental political and religious fronts, but we’ve found our common goals to outweigh our differences.
She was at Mary’s memorial and made her way to me through a daunting crowd to deliver a message of support that I will never forget.
The home education community is small and diverse. We have serious divides on serious issues, but we’ve always been able to discuss them while our children play and learn together.
I pray that this is emotional manipulation to acquire a desired behavior. I pray it is an empty threat. My children have no control over my choices, why should they be further isolated from friends after this difficult year?
Don’t Lie to Yourself
“We didn’t even have a lockdown, and the impact of Covid is very minimal compared to other countries … but still we see this big increase in the number of suicides,” said Michiko Ueda, an associate professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, and an expert on suicides.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/28/asia/japan-suicide-women-covid-dst-intl-hnk/index.html
Japan has the data on suicides that must be occuring all over the world. Harsher Lockdowns, arbitrary measures, and hypocritical politicians and virtue police are driving deaths of despair to unconscionable heights.
My 30 days of gratitudes has been a rocky path. I started later than most, missed a day or two, and have been side tracked by my own rough goings.
Today I’m grateful that CNN doesn’t have a Biden foreign intervention to sell yet and is reporting on a critical story that may sway some of the Doomers.
Yep, my lamest gratitude of the month.
I’m also grateful that I’ve gone through intellectual, spiritual, and physical transformations. I’ve changed my perspective on major aspects of life and still love and respect that old Jason who was wrong as shit. I also love myself now, even though I may still be totally full of crap. I’m not afraid to see the truth and repeat it. That’s the only way to grow into harmony with existence. Lies separate you from reality. They twist it into an unknowable thing. Reality is dangerous. Existence is suffering. If you don’t see those facts clearly, they will level you and you won’t know where you are.
I don’t have a lock on truth, but I’m heading in the right direction.
The Lockdown is Inhumane
My sons and I were supposed to go on a hike today with other families who have lost loved ones. Delaware’s governor imposed regulations this week that forced its cancellation.
This is not okay. These children and parents are facing crushing loneliness. Some of them lost a mother, father, sibling, child, or other close family member during the Lockdown and have had little contact with others.
My children have made friends in this group and meet new, wonderful children each time we get together.
After having met outside several times this fall and summer, there have been no reported cases of Covid-19 within the group.
This group is invaluable to families who have had much of their support structure taken away during the hardest time in their lives.
This is not okay. Children have been kept away from their schoolmates and all of us have had our grief groups and therapists reduced to Zoom, at best.
It’s very difficult for me to connect with someone through an image. In person, I have anxiety and detachment when one, or both, of us are in masks.
I’m concentrating on gratitudes this month, but today is hard. I’m grateful for this outlet. I’m grateful for my widow friends who will meet in person. I’m grateful for the many connections we made before Lockdown and have been able to maintain through it. I’m grateful that I’ve got a lot of fight in me. I’m grateful for my health.
I have an infinite number of things to be grateful for, but today is still hard.
Grateful for 2020
I got dumped last night and this is one of those posts that I hope no one reads.
I met my now-ex-girlfriend days before 2020 began. We had an instant connection and our romance bloomed quickly. She had met my children and we were in a pretty great place when the Lockdowns hit.
I’m radically full of Love and not inclined to fear death. I lost my wife to complications arising from respiratory infections, so this wasn’t a new threat in my life. I feel like a minority in this view and I was pleased that my girlfriend was accepting of my perspective. There’s no way that two people can have the same risk assessments, but we were pretty close.
We each wrestled with the anxieties and confusions of the mainstream narrative and the Lockdowns. We stayed together through tough times and supported each others lows.
That romance has come to an end, but I don’t have animosity. I am filled with gratitude that I had a supportive and loving partner through most of this year.
Grateful for Perspective
We’re all connected in many ways. Most of those ways are unknowable. Every day we interact with people who have contagious loved ones, emotional traumas that may be triggered by our careless words, and an innumerable number of threats to our safety.
Life isn’t safe, but it is better than the alternative.
Grateful for Rebel Friends
On the first day of increased Lockdown restrictions I was able to host home educating and distance learning families for a few hours of Lego building and fellowship. We didn’t treat each other as if we were diseased threats, nor did we observe government mandated gathering limits.
These friends are all new. The variety of perspectives and backgrounds in our small group is astounding. I could talk with any of these moms for hours and I love listening to their journeys.
None of them knew Mary. I love hosting people in the home we built together. She would have it no other way. Well, she wouldn’t be okay with the level of clutter that I am.
I’m grateful for the people in my life who will not bow down to nonsensical restrictions on our rights of assembly, movement, and speech.