On 2016, and 2017

So, yesterday, standing with family and a small group of people that I still, somewhat, consider friends, I made the following toast:

"May your darkest fears not come to pass,
May your noblest aspirations come to fruition,
May you find joy and good fortune,
And as the Navy says,
Fair winds and following seas" 

I meant it from the bottom of my heart. The first line was directly addressing all of the negativity I'd heard in the last two months from not only that set of friends, but family as well. Few of that crowd were SJW, but more on that later.

The second line was something I figured would sound nice for the crowd, but was really for me and those online I consider my friends, for nobility and virtue seem to be in short supply among the values of the left, and to the extent their intentions are good, that they wish people peace and prosperity, well, their means may result in a nightmare, but many of the ends are things the right wishes too.

And hey, I'm a squid, or was, a couple in the group were too, and it translates well while not being the same thing most non-navy types hear every day.

So, 2016. Yeah, for once I'll be navel gazing and personal.

I think for me, like for a lot of people it's been one hell of a ride. though in my case it's less scary than thrilling and sometimes nail-biting. As will become obvious, many around me found the "hell" quite literal.

There are reasons I don't go into game here. One is that I spent far too much under the blue pill and  with emotional vampires that despite my age and barely grown children I've only awakened to the red pill recently. Outside of the most obvious observations, and some personal experience I've belatedly processed and understood with cluster-B's, I've got little to offer in terms of guidance, mostly a willing ear. Most of what I can offer are other realizations I've come to in a life-long search for the truth, and passions which have stood the test of time.

Insofar as family - Mine are that family of immigrants held up as an ideal - parents came over as children, I was the first generation born here, grands worked hard to assimilate. Despite that, despite direct experience with the horrors of communism, and large families, less than one in three are conservative, and most of those are #nevertrump.

Yeah. No magic dirt.

It is a consolation though that family ties are strong enough, and most members sane enough, that there's little SJW incontinence to put up with. The family blowup over the holidays I alluded to elsewhere was actually due to my dad  - pro Trump - not being able to argue his points, or get into other people's heads to understand the current context. It all ended well - my parents and siblings are made of better stuff than SJW's.

This year for me was difficult on several fronts. Obviously I considered how to best prepare if Hillary won, though I felt Trump had decent odds of winning, and would do far better than predicted by the media and the left. I also had to address some family with medical issues, which stripped away much of the time and money I'd otherwise have dedicated to much needed self-improvement and education. The last six months have been particularly bad. I'd not exercised with clockwork regularity at any point, but still put enough time with my weight set over most of the last couple years - at least twice a week - to justify it, until the latter half of this year. Watching my health insurance go up by a car payment for a decent used car was also a blow.

That said, I'd learned much. I'd already learned of Cernovich, but got to listen to and learn from Scott Adams, and Stefan Molyneux, finally hitting a tipping point in my journey to the red pill that began a long time ago, passing through Shrink4Men, MMSL, No More Mr Nice Guy, and finally Vox Day's sites where I found a like-minded home a few years back.

I started this blog. No - it's not my first, though it's the first to be utterly unfiltered as it's not tied to my persona and work and clients. I'm moderately antifragile, but while I live in a red state, my immediate environs are sufficiently blue (and the red-state guys, sufficiently blue pill) that being publicly political with my beliefs would not be wise. It's already achieved one goal - to have a post up every weekday, no matter how lame.

I've succeeded at that, and will keep it up, in the goal of developing systems, aka "habits". Getting stuff done, every day, no matter what, is a good habit that will feed others.

Old friends?

Oh hell.

I don't think it's simply greater awareness, as much of that awareness of bias/etc. in the world has been there for quite some time, but I've lost count in the last year of how many people I knew felt it perfectly OK or true to spew stuff that was just.... wrong. The sheer negativity....

One woman turned to me during a conversation I was mostly ignoring and, upon reiteration, I discovered she wanted me to back her up on the assertion that a woman who's not working is wasting her life, and a woman should work. I pointed out that on one hand feminists state that being a housewife was worth a salary of tens of thousands of dollars, or treat all work, including paid-for-housewife as maid and nanny, were somehow magically fine, yet electing to do the work oneself was somehow worthless?

The conversation rapidly changed.

On making america great again, I overheard a discussion where the biddies were asking each other "where they were" on election night as if it was 9/11, JFK's assassination, or the Challenger explosion. And that Trump voters must not like lower unemployment, better health care, etc. As if the unemployment numbers are a reasonable metric of reality, and health care hasn't gone up by 300% in the last 8 years, or like the middle class and blue-collar workers, as even Michael fucking Moore was perceptive enough to note, haven't suffered due to energy and other policies. People I knew nodded along sagely.

When pointing out the media is lying, I've been dismissed with the angry, violent rejoinder that I should stop listening to fake, right wing hate sites. Even when I'm referring to something trivially provable like Donna Brazile, or various cases of audio and video editing.

I've seen a constant 2016 sucks attitude at every turn. I run into people who really will not listen to anything Trump said directly, and parse it. They think he's a racist and a  rapist. And they are vomiting this out unrequested at every turn.

At every turn there is more stridency, more negativity, more doubling down, more belief that people opposing them are stupid, narcissistic, incompetent, etc., and I have less and less patience for the ones who are aware I'm not on board insisting "you're one of the good ones.".

So I find my circle of local friends and acquaintances shrinking between the emotionally incontinent and the cuckservative.

Fortunately, I also made friends - among them, the Didact - who may or may not believe I'm smarter than them, if they care, but to whom I look up to for their insight and writing. And I believe as I improve my social skills and actively work to develop my in-person networks, I'll find more locally as well. I hope to offer equal measure in return.

Overall, I think I'm in a position to really make the best of 2017

Why?

Systems.

I already mentioned the dark secret of this blog, such as it is, is that it's practice in developing a habit, of putting something out every day, with a focus on getting something good, insightful, helpful, anything. It can't just be navel gazing, and it has to be regular.

I will apply this to getting back on not only an exercise regimen again, but a more regular one than even before.

I may or may not get a new computer and or a new game system - they'll have their uses and I'll leave that decision until it's either a necessity or I decide to pull the trigger.

I'll be reading more on philosophy and persuasion, as well as working on friendships offline.

I'm actively keeping my eye open for opportunities that allow for residual income, to get away from the billable hours grind. And I am developing the networks to find and the skills to make use of them.

I'll continue upgrading a few select items I make heavy use of even if they're not quite work into the ground yet, and decluttering other crap I just don't need - a process that had already started a couple months ago.

I look forward to actually completing a full calendar year of this blog, with a post each weekday at minimum, a few national or personal holidays excepted, and hope that not only my writing improves, but that more of you come to enjoy it.

So, once more, with feeling -

"May your darkest fears not come to pass,
May your noblest aspirations come to fruition,
May you find joy and good fortune,
And as the Navy says,
Fair winds and following seas" 

Have a great 2017.