Vocation and Articulation

Sarah Hoyt describes the challenges of attempting to make a living doing what you love when the entire system is more or less stacked against you:

I want to talk about the human with a vocation/with a need to do something. The something exists in the world. They can theoretically do it.

Then human meets the broken systems. Which I don’t think are YET at peak broken, but are heading there.

As I said, I’ve seen it happen in writing, in art, in teaching, but I’m seeing it a bit everywhere.

You try, but no matter how much you try, how hard you work, or what you do, it seems like everything is against you. And because no one — no one — talks about it it openly, most people who are failing badly think they’re alone in this, and that everyone else is WILDLY successful: writers, artists, mothers (particularly of boys), teachers, etc. etc. etc.

You think “the system is broken? Or is it? Am I just making excuses for myself?” And you try harder. But since the system is actually designed NOT to work, (and you’re mostly seeing the successful people who are either flukes, a well polished facade, or people who are having transitory success and will be shredded later) you keep getting beat. Sometimes you have a little success first, but it all breaks apart later.

Another way to “fail” is to have a very strong brand, do very well with it, and then…. well, it falls apart. Either because you changed, and don’t do the thing the way you did it initially, or because — for artists, though I’m sure there’s parallels in other professions — your public changed. Or changed the way they see you.

Let’s say you’re to the right of Lenin (or these days, Stalin) and you’re a writer of science fiction and fantasy (or certain types of romance; or–), working in the indie side, you might very well build a huge audience, who run screaming when they find you’re one of those “evil right wingers” or who at least can’t withstand a loud and sustained cancel campaign. It’s happened to several of us. And then, of course, you start wondering why you feel called to do this, when you have political opinions so at variance with the “community who reads this” (Or at least the loud parts of the community. And this one is complex, because it’s hard to find readers, anyway, and if all readers think sf/f is left, a lot of people who would otherwise enjoy it don’t even try it out. Kind of like I keep running into “Science fiction is porn” which apparently is from…. guess? Oh, you’ll never guess. Clan of the Cavebear, which is neither science fiction nor porn, but some readers of a certain age associate that with both. That will change, as indie makes a dent. Takes time, though. I mean the association of SF/F and “left”.)

Okay, so…. Never mind why your heart broke. One day you wake up and you think “I just can’t do this anymore. It’s been my driving force since…. ever. But I can’t. I can’t anymore.”

What you’re experiencing, unless it’s your very first failure — and it usually isn’t — is … well, I call it a broken heart, but it’s actually ptsd and burnout.

My solution – and I am not recommending it, merely sharing my perspective – is to simply refuse to regard my activity as economic in nature. I’m not bearing down this week in order to finish the 297,500-word final edition of A SEA OF SKULLS this month because some people might buy it or because it might generate some revenue or because it will make a pretty pair of leather books or because some people might be impressed with me as a writer. I literally don’t think about those things at all, and I think that if I did, it would hinder my ability to write.

I’m doing it because I want to do it. I’m continuing the story because the story continues in my head and it isn’t finished yet.

Sarah touches on this tangentially in her piece: This is the secret no one else will tell you: There is no career. The career is a lie.

I don’t consider myself to have “a career as a writer”. I just write books. Then Castalia publishes them. Repeat as desired. As long as the ideas continue to percolate and flow, I will write them down, in part because the smartest girl I ever knew once told her friend that an idea is only a feeling until it is articulated. And I like to articulate my ideas, which necessitates writing them down because talking to other people too often leads to distraction.

Also, in case anyone is interested, I’ve recently written an introduction for an unannounced Castalia History book that I believe will prove enlightening….

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How to Fail

Johnny Manziel was given a team iPad where coaches could secretly track the amount of time he spent watching film. But the problem was that Manziel didn’t watch any film. Literally not a minute.

It would probably surprise most of you how few people are capable of performing even the most basic and rudimentary aspects of their jobs. And it’s not as if the solution is necessarily more pay.

Johnny Manziel signed a 4 year, $8,248,596 contract with the Cleveland Browns, including a $4,318,980 signing bonus, $7,998,596 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $2,062,149.

Note that not even two million dollars per year was enough to get the guy to watch five minutes of game film.

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The Unaccountable

The FDA not only overstepped its legal authority and lied about the inefficacy and dangers of Ivermectin, but is attempting to claim that no one has any standing to hold it legally accountable for its illegal actions:

The plaintiffs are Drs. Paul Marik, Mary Bowden, and Robert Apter. They say they were professionally harmed by the FDA’s statements, including being terminated over efforts to prescribe ivermectin to patients.

Dr. Marik has noted that a number of studies support using ivermectin against COVID-19, as the FDA itself has acknowledged. Some other studies show little to no effect.

Federal law enables the FDA to provide information, such as reports of adverse reactions to drugs, but not medical advice, Mr. Kelson said. “This is something the FDA has never been able to do. And it’s a bright line,” he told the court, adding later: “The clearest examples of where they have gone over the line are when they say things like, ‘You are not a horse, you are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.’”

Judges indicated they agree that the FDA lacks the power to give medical advice; Judge Clement said, “You’re not authorized to give medical advice.”

But Ms. Honold said the government “isn’t conceding that in this case.” She also argued that Congress has empowered the FDA to protect public health and make sure regulated products are safe and effective, giving it the “inherent authority to further its mission by communicating information to the public about safe uses of drugs.” A ruling in favor of the doctors would prevent the FDA from reporting on consumers suffering after cooking chicken with NyQuil or that opioid addiction is a problem, she claimed.

Mr. Kelson said that wasn’t accurate. “It’s when they step beyond that [and] start telling people how they should or should not be using approved drugs,” he said.

Ms. Honold also said that the courts can’t hold agencies accountable when they provide false or misleading information: “The FDA is politically accountable, just like all other executive agencies.”

The idea that an unelected agency is “politically accountable” is risible on its face. One might as reasonably argue that executive branch agents are permitted to steal and kill without facing any legal consequences, because the President to whom they ultimately report is elected. It’s a breathtakingly ridiculous argument, and the only way it could possibly be accepted by the courts is if they are not only entirely corrupt, but entirely willing to be seen as such by the public.

It’s also interesting that when the media was pushing “trust the science” and “it’s FDA-approved”, it never saw fit to mention that the FDA is not authorized to give medical advice such as telling people to get vaccinated or to not take Ivermectin.

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FBI 1, Boomerwaffen 0

Not a great start for the Gadsden Flag crowd. Fedposting has consequences, so don’t advocate revolution and violence against the US government unless you’re actually prepared for the FBI to show up at your door with guns blazing. Neon Revolt is skeptical that the Boomers will learn any more from the execution of Craig Robertson than they did from Waco, 9/11, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, and every other exercise of executive branch action.

The FBI summarily executing a mobility-scooter Boomer for his angry Facebook rantings just goes to highlight this one fact: The America that Boomers think exists does not exist any more and they may not truly understand what was lost under their watch until the Rainbow Bolsheviks roll up to their homes and shoot them dead in the face for wrongthink.

It would be nice to think he was wrong, but there simply isn’t any evidence that he is. The fact is that the FBI showed up at an old man’s door because he was expressing himself on Facebook, then shot and killed him. That’s not America. That’s the exact opposite of America as its ideals are expressed in the words, actions, and documents of its Founding Fathers.

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YouTube Deplatforms Scott Ritter

It’s getting a little tedious seeing people who insist on relying solely upon hostile platforms affecting surprise upon discovering that they, too, are on the hit list. This must be what it was like in a historical society where people were rounded up gradually, and no one ever did anything because, after all, nothing had happened to them yet.

YouTube has terminated the account of former US spy Scott Ritter and deleted all of his videos on the platform. According to Ritter, the Google-owned social media giant accused his channel of violating the terms of service.

Writing on X, Ritter stated that his channel, ‘The Scott Ritter Show’, through which he attempted to “import Russian voices to an American/Western audience,” had been flagged for ‘hate speech’ and taken down without prior warning or any specific examples of the offense.

Sooner or later, you would think that people would begin to grasp that it’s not necessary to actually break any of the rules to be metaphorically accused, arrested, charged, found guilty, and punished with deplatforming in one fell swoop. Do they seriously believe that everyone who had previously been deplatformed was genuinely guilty? Do they seriously think X isn’t going to do the same thing, sooner or later?

It’s interesting that they targeted Ritter now, though. This suggests that either a) something is going to happen in Ukraine or b) something is going to come out about Ukraine. He’s a fairly esoteric figure; if he was going to be deplatformed over the Special Military Operation, one would have expected it to happen about a year ago. So the question is not why, but why now? If Col. MacGregor is similarly deplatformed soon, that will tend to heighten suspicions.

Anyhow, this is precisely why UATV exists. And this is precisely why I encourage everyone who reads the blog to subscribe to UATV. And speaking of UATV, the SG community has suggested that we launch a DIY channel where UATV subscribers who specialize in useful skills can send videos to the channel moderators who will review and upload them for the benefit of the UATV community.

It’s a good idea, especially since YouTube is getting less and less useful for even the most vanilla subjects, so we’re sorting out how we’re going to make that happen.

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Immigration Blight in London

In 1948, London began to import foreigners en masse, and now Central London is hollowing out in precisely the manner that the large American cities did in the 20th century. Demographically, the city is now approximately where Detroit was in 1973. Assuming the pendulum doesn’t swing back violently, it will look like Detroit does now by 2060.

Crime rates on Oxford Street are surging as what was once London’s top shopping district falls into disrepair, Marks & Spencer’s operations director has warned. Sacha Berendji described how the road had once been ‘the jewel in London’s shopping crown’ but now had ’empty shops, littered streets and fewer visitors’.

He said shocking scenes of social media-fuelled carnage this week as young thugs attempted to loot stores in the area were ‘another reminder of how bad things are’.

After shops shut as yobs tried to barge their way in, Mr Berendji told the Telegraph: ‘The street was practically locked down by police to prevent major unrest planned on social media. Londoners know that something must be done to save Oxford Street.’

The chaos in Central London echoes robberies and flashmob looting across the US in recent years, which has been organised through TikTok – while major cities such as San Francisco and New York are becoming crime-ravaged and drug-infested.

It comes amid a battle to save Oxford Street, which is one of the biggest victims of the slow death of the High Street across Britain. It has been overrun in recent years by tacky sweet shops that have replaced household names and blighted the area.

It’s remarkable how no people anywhere around the world appear capable of learning from the examples set by others. Everywhere blacks, Arabs, and Asians have been imported, the standard set by the native populace has not merely been degraded, but disintegrated to the point that none of the natives will even set foot there anymore.

Frankly, it’s astonishing to me that immigrants and refugees aren’t already being shot on sight in cities like Tokyo and Shanghai. As wealth and power shifts to the East, the flow of mass immigration will follow them, and the process of immigration blight will begin there.

No dirt is magic. The characteristics of a place are determined by its people, and people are defined by their genetics, not their geographic location.

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Homonazis in the UK

Clown World just got even clownier:

A police force has been accused of heavy handedness after a teenage girl with autism was detained by seven cops after ‘saying a female officer looked like her nana, who is a lesbian’. The 16-year-old, who also suffers from scoliosis, had been driven to her home in Leeds, West Yorkshire, by officers after midnight when she allegedly made the comment. She was later dragged away screaming in the early hours of Monday morning over the ‘homophobic public order offence’.

It’s rapidly becoming abundantly clear why every civilized society for thousands of years didn’t tolerate sexual deviants of any kind.

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