Is malaise as bad as tyranny?
Reflections on ennui in the limbo between liberty and tyranny
My paper cut artwork photographed in my kitchen
While some people may disagree, it is at least arguable that America is not yet a full bore tyranny. While it is true corrupt lawfare is rife, there are National Guard troops in the NYC subways, and thousands of Americans are facing hard prison time for expressing their political opinion at the J6 protests, most Americans live more in fear of tyranny than are yet suffering its actually effects.
What have instead is decline, malaise, and a sense of uneasiness. Most people aren’t starving, but every day the average person can afford less quality, variety and quantity of food. Most people aren’t in prison, but we have a strong sense that if you insult the wrong “protected” group your communications tools, and even your banking could be cut off. Gas is expensive enough that using the car is for essential trips only now, no more care free drives in the country. People are angry and on edge, you can see it in the increasingly reckless and angry driving that is ever more common, the sour faces on clerks in stores, etc. What we have is less a tyranny but more a sense of formless malaise and discontent. Many people in America feel uneasy, listless, anxious and depressed. It honestly feels hard to get motivated some days, surely I’m not the only person who feels this way?
In some ways malaise is worse than tyranny for several reasons. The first is, it encourages a sense of passive acceptance, I mean things aren’t that bad, I mean hey bombs aren’t raining down on us, we aren’t searching through the rubble of our house for our dead children, right? Better to just quietly grin and bare it right, to complain at less than a total catastrophe is just churlish and petty isn’t it? To feel frustrated, but not frustrated enough to organize something to do about it, is just dis-empowering, isolating and depressing. And even if you felt like getting organized, what exactly is it you are organizing against?
Curtis Yarvin writing as Mencius Moldbug, was correct in stating “the Cathedral,” is very decentralized, more a worldview than a group of specific people, that can be specifically targeted. Again this is dispiriting, how does one target an elite worldview? It’s like fighting an army of ghosts, or beating the ocean with a board. I mean, hey you are just paranoid, aren’t you? In a state of malaise you feel bad, but there is no fighting back, no spirit of adventure and noble purpose of living through a historic time that will go down in the history books. So just keep feeling bad, it’s you not them. Is your blood boiling yet? Mine is, yet at the same time it feels like there is nothing to be done. Or is there?
What exactly can we do? I think the first thing we can do is talk about it, both to friends and family, and on uncensored online venues like this. This may not seem like much, but it will leave you feeling less isolated and depressed, and will also give you more perspectives on what exactly the formless menace is. We can actually learn something from the Commies and their idea of “solidarity.” You can actually face a lot if you feel you have people in your life who have your back. Also we can start prepping for a time when the mask fully slips off and we live in real tyranny. Prepping gives you the important sense of not just being impotent, but doing something about the situation you are in. So start a food pantry in your house, start storing water and salt, get a gun and ammo and learn how to use it, if you aren’t a pacifist. You may find you meet some sympatico people in your local prepping community, and again you will feel less of the alone feeling of malaise and despair.
Also get out of the city. Political cares melt away hiking in the woods, even a day trip can really help keep ones spirits up in a time of malaise. And keeping your spirits up is important, for this is a spiritual war as much as anything else. In an information age, where propaganda is king, psy-op information warfare on the field of your psyche is at as least important as physical intimidation to oligarchic rule. The powers that be want you demoralized, depressed, anxious, and without hope. So doing something to feel in control of your life is more than just yuppie New Age, “self care,” it’s literally an anti-psy-op tactic. So don’t just passively doom scroll, reach out and connect and prepare, for now it may just be malaise, but get yourself both physically and mentally healthy and strong in case it turns into something more.
If you would like to support a man trying to live outside the urban malaise, you can support me with a direct subscription here, or 3 other ways.
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I am working on making making up some mated 8 x 10 paper cut art I would send out as gifts to anyone who subscribes for a year ahead of time for 60 dollars, I will also be selling them for 40 dollars apiece. More later in a few days or so when I get some more mated up.
This is really helpful and makes me feel less alone. I appreciate you and your writing.
I feel drained so much of the time lately and I'm never quite sure why.
I think part of that feeling affects those of us who care. We aren’t dissuaded by bread and circus, so we are much more aware of the criminal offense being perpetrated against those of us who cherish freedom. Bet if you asked most of us here about some ball game score,you’d get a blank stare. Same as anything involving entertainment. Or “mainstream” news. The distraction only works on some. Unfortunately it’s most. And yeah, Florida’s waterfront will make you happy. Got two houses up river right now for sale, both around 650-700. Taxes about 5 k. My former waterfront home on Lake Ontario is now taxed at 13000. lol. For nothing. And it’s frozen half the time.